Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to strengthen maternity and neonatal care for people in North East Somerset & Hanham.

The University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Trust (UHBW), the North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), and the Royal United Hospitals NHS Trust (RUH) provide maternity services for North East Somerset and Hanham.

Steps taken at UHBW and NBT include: a well-established Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) that replicates national guidance; achieving full compliance against all 10 maternity safety actions for the second year running; good progress against ‘Saving Babies Lives’ Version 3; and working to reduce inequalities in maternity and neonatal care through collaboration with the Race and Health Observatory and Black Maternity Matters anti-racism training for perinatal staff.

Steps taken at RUH include robust oversight of perinatal quality improvement projects as part of NHS England’s ‘Savings Babies Lives’ care bundle, including the smoke-free pregnancy incentive voucher scheme, and working with families through initiatives such as the MNVP.

At a national level, Baroness Amos is leading a rapid, national, independent investigation into National Health Service maternity and neonatal services to help us to understand the systemic issues behind why so many women, babies, and families experience unacceptable care. The Government is also setting up a National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, chaired by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The taskforce will take forward the recommendations of the investigation to develop a new national action plan to drive improvements across maternity and neonatal care.