Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Karin Smyth and Laura Kyrke-Smith(3 days, 6 hours ago)
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Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I commend my hon. Friend for her work on such an important topic; I know it is very personal to her. Specialist perinatal and maternity mental health services are available across England, providing vital support to parents before, during and after pregnancy, including increased access to evidence-based psychological therapies. We are training thousands more midwives to better support women throughout pregnancy, with mother and baby units and community services providing postnatal support.
Laura Kyrke-Smith
Tomorrow is World Maternal Mental Health Day, recognising the particular challenges that some mums face from pregnancy to birth, and after birth. I commend the Secretary of State and his team for their rapid work to get the NHS delivering better for patients again. As they develop the 10-year plan for the NHS, what measures will be taken to ensure that all women facing perinatal mental health challenges can access the right psychological support, and that there is no postcode lottery?
Karin Smyth
I absolutely join my hon. Friend in recognising the importance of supporting women’s health throughout pregnancy and into parenthood on Maternal Mental Health Day. We are committed to improving the support available, and it will form an important part of our 10-year plan. We are investing £126 million in family hubs and Start for Life services, to support parents from pregnancy to their child’s early childhood, and we will continue to work with her on this.
Winter Preparedness
Debate between Karin Smyth and Laura Kyrke-Smith(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Karin Smyth
The hon. Gentleman is wholly wrong to say that winter crises happen under every Government in every year. They happened, and became a fact of the NHS, under his party’s Government. The key difference this year, which the Conservatives will still not address, is the fact that doctors are not on strike. Doctors are working in the system, caring for patients and doing their job, because this Government, on day one and week one and week four, delivered the negotiated settlement with the doctors. We cannot run the NHS and we cannot manage a winter crisis without doctors in the frontline, and that is where they are. That is what the difference is.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
It is great to be going into the winter for the first time in four years without doctors being on strike. Last week I visited the new emergency medical receiving unit at Stoke Mandeville hospital, a 21-bed facility to provide quicker care for patients who come in from ambulances and as a result of GP referrals but require only short admissions. The early results look very promising. Does the Minister agree that we must take these pockets of good practice from across the NHS and ensure that other parts of the NHS learn from and adopt them to help us get through this winter and future winters?