Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve maternity estates and clear the fixable maintenance backlog.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are investing over £131 million through the 2025/26 Estates Safety Fund to address critical safety risks on the maternity estate, enabling better care for mothers and their newborns. The funded works will deliver vital safety improvements, enhance patient and staff environments, and support National Health Service productivity by reducing disruptions across NHS clinical services.
Improving the standard of maternity and neonatal departments is also a core component of the New Hospital Programme. 11 of the 16 hospitals that are expected to begin construction between 2025 and 2030 will be rebuilding maternity and women and children’s services.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Midwives' campaign entitled Safe staffing = safe care, January 2026, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing multi-year funding through a national maternity and neonatal action plan on maternity services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will build on the 10-Year Health Plan to set out how we will deliver a new workforce model with staff who are aligned with the future direction of reform. The Department launched a Call for Evidence in September 2025 until November 2025 to seek views from healthcare organisations and those with expertise in workforce planning to develop the new workforce plan.
The independent National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, chaired by Baroness Amos, is expected to publish findings in the spring. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will chair the National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce to address the recommendations and develop a new national action plan to drive improvements across maternity and neonatal care.
Asked by: Baroness Wyld (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion of, neonatal units meet the standard for parent accommodation; and whether they plan to allocate capital to bring parent accommodation on neonatal units up to national standard.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The results from NHS England’s Maternity and Neonatal Infrastructure Review, commissioned in 2023, showed that there are 747 parental accommodation rooms within neonatal units nationally. NHS England does not hold data on the standard of these rooms. However, there is undoubtedly variation in the provision of parental accommodation at neonatal units across England and we know that not all maternity hospitals are currently able to offer adequate accommodation for families due to the historic undercapitalisation across the National Health Service. A summary of the findings report can be found on the NHS.UK website. Data on the number of parental accommodation rooms is in the table attached.
As a first step towards improving the NHS maternity and neonatal estate, we are investing £131 million through the 2025/26 Estates Safety Fund to address critical safety risks on the maternity and neonatal estate, enabling better care for mothers and their newborns. The funded works will deliver vital safety improvements, enhance patient and staff environments, and support NHS productivity by reducing disruptions across NHS clinical services.
In addition, the Government is backing the NHS with over £4 billion in operational capital in 2025/26, with a further £16.9 billion to be allocated to integrated care boards and providers over the following four years, enabling systems to allocate funding to maternity and neonatal estates services where this is a local priority.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many births recorded in the Maternity Services Dataset have been associated with the SNOMED CT codes i) 125678001, ii) 699110007, iii) 1269487002, iv) 1269486006 and v) 842009 in each year since the introduction of that coding within that dataset.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support families who have experienced baby loss in Bristol Central constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Both the North Bristol NHS Trust and the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust have dedicated maternity bereavement teams who provide support for families experiencing baby loss. This includes practical help with funeral arrangements, accessing financial support, and investigations, as well as ongoing emotional support, attending appointments, and supporting them when meeting and making memories with their baby.
Counselling or access to psychological support are available, and spiritual or religious support is provided by chaplaincy teams in collaboration with external religious leaders at the family's request. Support for families during subsequent pregnancy is also provided.
Local teams ensure all those experiencing early pregnancy loss are made aware of the resources available to them through partners and charities, many of whom they work with regularly, and will signpost families on to them where appropriate for ongoing support.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support sustainable working patterns for midwives in NHS maternity services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want to move the National Health Service toward a culture where flexible working opportunities are much more widely available and there is support for employees to be able to work more sustainably.
A number of actions have already been taken to support flexible working in the NHS including changes to terms and conditions and training for staff and line managers to help drive culture change and support uptake. NHS England continues to support organisations in the implementation of effective use of e-rostering systems. E-rostering can allocate individuals to shifts based on their working patterns and preferences, supporting more predictable shift patterns, especially when paired with a team-based rostering approach.
Additionally, as set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will introduce a new set of staff standards for modern employment this year which will aim to ensure NHS staff feel well supported in the workplace.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
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 ensure frontline diagnostic capability for Placenta Accreta Spectrum at every level of maternity care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To ensure effective diagnosis and management of placenta accreta spectrum (PAS), national guidance is provided within the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Placenta Praevia and Placenta Accreta: Diagnosis and Management guidelines. Both these guidance documents are available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng192/documents/draft-guideline-2
The Department does not hold data on what proportion of the maternity workforce has received PAS diagnostic training in each of the last five years, as PAS training is managed locally by trusts. The Department does not currently have plans to mandate frontline PAS diagnostic training.
In 2020, NHS England commissioned placenta accreta networks in the United Kingdom to support local and regional screening, shared protocols, and co-ordinated referral pathways to specialist pregnancy accreta centres. These centres consist of highly experienced multidisciplinary teams with the expertise to manage this condition and improve the safety outcomes for women and babies.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to mandate frontline Placenta Accreta Spectrum diagnostic training for relevant maternity clinicians.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To ensure effective diagnosis and management of placenta accreta spectrum (PAS), national guidance is provided within the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Placenta Praevia and Placenta Accreta: Diagnosis and Management guidelines. Both these guidance documents are available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng192/documents/draft-guideline-2
The Department does not hold data on what proportion of the maternity workforce has received PAS diagnostic training in each of the last five years, as PAS training is managed locally by trusts. The Department does not currently have plans to mandate frontline PAS diagnostic training.
In 2020, NHS England commissioned placenta accreta networks in the United Kingdom to support local and regional screening, shared protocols, and co-ordinated referral pathways to specialist pregnancy accreta centres. These centres consist of highly experienced multidisciplinary teams with the expertise to manage this condition and improve the safety outcomes for women and babies.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the maternity workforce has received Placenta Accreta Spectrum diagnostic training in each of the last five years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To ensure effective diagnosis and management of placenta accreta spectrum (PAS), national guidance is provided within the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Placenta Praevia and Placenta Accreta: Diagnosis and Management guidelines. Both these guidance documents are available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng192/documents/draft-guideline-2
The Department does not hold data on what proportion of the maternity workforce has received PAS diagnostic training in each of the last five years, as PAS training is managed locally by trusts. The Department does not currently have plans to mandate frontline PAS diagnostic training.
In 2020, NHS England commissioned placenta accreta networks in the United Kingdom to support local and regional screening, shared protocols, and co-ordinated referral pathways to specialist pregnancy accreta centres. These centres consist of highly experienced multidisciplinary teams with the expertise to manage this condition and improve the safety outcomes for women and babies.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of effectiveness of Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnerships (MNVP), including Oxfordshire MNVP in representing the experience of mothers and families.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnerships (MNVPs) ensure that the voices of service users are central to decision-making within maternity and neonatal services. An MNVP listens to the experiences of women and families, and brings together service users, staff, and other stakeholders to plan, review, and improve maternity and neonatal care. The ambitions and objectives for MNVPs are outlined in the Three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, which is avaiable at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/three-year-delivery-plan-for-maternity-and-neonatal-services/
Integrated care board (ICBs) have a responsibility to ensure that MNVPs are delivering on the commitments set out in NHS England’s national guidance, which is avaiable at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/maternity-and-neonatal-voices-partnership-guidance/
A memorandum of understanding is in place for the Oxfordshire MNVP to oversee an agreed workplan, which is supported by the financial investment made by the ICB.
The ICB has appropriate governance mechanisms in place to ensure oversight of Oxfordshire MNVP activities.