World Suicide Prevention Day

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I will mention the hon. Lady’s constituent later; I am aware of the great work that he has done after the loss of his son by suicide. I agree that we all need to get behind that campaign, and I have no doubt that the Prime Minister will be keen to do that too.

The statistics paint a bleak picture, but I want to focus on the positive work being done across the UK on and around World Suicide Prevention Day to prevent suicide and change the narrative. There are so many organisations and individuals working to build hope and fighting to reverse these trends, offering real, practical help and support to people who are struggling.

When we look at our statutory services, we must recognise the vital role played by our national health service. I pay tribute to the extraordinary dedication of NHS mental health staff, who work under immense pressure every single day to provide compassionate, lifesaving care to those in crisis. But NHS talking therapies and other work can support only those who are successfully referred, and a significant gap remains among those accessing that care. For instance, despite having acute mental health needs, men account for only 36% of referrals to NHS talking therapies. That mismatch shows that, even with the outstanding commitment of frontline clinicians, statutory services cannot carry the weight of suicide prevention alone. They rely on close partnerships with community and voluntary organisations to reach people before they reach crisis.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend for her courageous work on this issue, and for introducing the debate today. Will she join me in thanking those organisations in my constituency, including Scott Grover’s work with his Men Walking and Talking group and the fantastic work of Steve and Talk Club? Talk Club has a lovely approach where they sit, talk and listen. They will not just ask whether people are okay; they will say, “On a scale of one to 10, how are you feeling today?”, and that opens up conversations about mental health and suicide in such a powerful way. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking all my fantastic local groups for their efforts?

Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 4th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

This is such an important Bill, and I am pleased to support it. He is not in his place, but I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for bringing it forward. What a credit it will be to him if the Bill proceeds. We would also not be here without the work of Dame Andrea Leadsom and all the team at the 1001 Critical Days Foundation, and I put on record my thanks and appreciation to them. I also take the opportunity to wish the most important baby in my life, my little niece Hallie, a very happy first birthday which is coming up next week.

The Bill does vital work putting into law the requirement to ensure that infants, parents, carers and prospective parents receive the support that they need at this vital time in life: the start of a baby’s life. We have heard many examples of how this would be transformative for the babies and families who lie at the heart of the Bill, and rightly so, because evidence is compelling that the care that a baby receives in those first 1,001 days from pregnancy to aged two, when those vital neural connections are forming in their brains, can affect their life chances in so many ways, from education to health to earnings potential.

My contribution will focus not on the babies, but on their parents and carers, specifically pregnant and new mums and their partners, and the mental health challenges that they can face at this time of life. I believe the Bill will improve the support available to them. However, babies and their parents are connected, of course, because we cannot separate a baby’s wellbeing from the wellbeing of those caring for them. When parents are struggling with their mental health, the effects can be felt throughout the family.

As compelling evidence from the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and others shows, perinatal mental illness is associated with increased risk of poor emotional, intellectual, social and physical development in children. It can disrupt attachment and bonding during the period when secure relationships are laying the foundations for a child’s future health and wellbeing, but when parents and carers are supported, and when babies experience that secure attachment as a result, babies go on to thrive.

Perinatal mental health is an issue close to my heart, as I have said in the Chamber before. I lost my close friend Sophie to suicide after the birth of her third daughter, when her little girl was just 10 weeks old. I have introduced my own Bill to stop more people suffering in the way that she did. My Bill would require that every pregnant and new mum has a mental health check-in, and I am continuing to push that forward. No matter how many times I speak about it, the sadness and shock of losing Sophie does not lessen, because she struggled more than anyone should have to at that time of life, but too many people are still struggling in the way that she did.

For many families, a new baby is time for excitement and joy, and I am so glad when that is the case, but for many others, it is time that can be marked by anxiety, depression, trauma, isolation and, in some cases, severe mental illness. Across the UK, about one in four women experience a mental health challenge during that time. That means that families in every community and every constituency are living with the realities of perinatal mental illness. This can include post-natal depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and, in some cases, severe illnesses, such as post-partum psychosis. These challenges can affect first-time parents, as well as experienced parents—for Sophie, it was her third time as a new mum. They can come quite unexpectedly, including for those with no history of severe mental illness.

We have spoken about how babies’ brains are forming in those 1,001 days, but a lot is happening for a mum at that point too. There is a brilliant book by Lucy Jones called “Matrescence”, which I recommend to everyone. It sets out the profound hormonal, neural and cognitive changes that occur during motherhood, which have consequences for people’s sense of identity and self in much the same way as happens to teenagers during adolescence. There have been some brilliant advocates for the idea of matrescence, including Maggie Gordon-Walker, who I want to acknowledge.

All of that creates challenges to mental health, which can have incredibly serious consequences. There is a great report by MBRRACE-UK—Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK—called “Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care” that shows that suicide remains the leading cause of death among women between six weeks and year after birth. That is a life lost, but it is also a family broken. That is the shocking and sobering reality of families not getting the recognition, understanding and support that they need at this time. That has consequences, not just for the people at the heart of the situation, but way beyond that, for the economy and society. The London School of Economics estimates the long-term cost of untreated perinatal mental health problems to be about £8.1 billion every year. Significantly, about three quarters of that cost—72%—arises from the long-term impact on the children’s ability to learn, earn, be healthy and care for themselves later in life.

Correcting all that has to start with raising awareness. Despite a lot of great advocacy and awareness-raising work from many organisations, including the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, Jo Cruse at Delivering Better, and the Hearts and Minds Partnership, we still recognise and understand perinatal mental health poorly. As a result, people continue to suffer in silence. They are afraid of being judged and fear that admitting that they are struggling could somehow be seen as a failure, or they might recognise that something is not right but they simply do not know where to turn for help.

Awareness alone is not enough; we need support too, and that is where the Bill comes in. I will touch briefly on four ways that it could make a real difference. First, the principle behind it is that everyone in England—regardless of who they are, where they are from and what their background is—is equally deserving of support at that time in life in the eyes of the law. The reality today is that not all pregnant and new mums get the same support. The evidence shows that mums from black and minority ethnic communities face much poorer outcomes and greater barriers to accessing care. Younger mothers, families in poverty and deprivation, and those living with the effects of domestic abuse or other past trauma encounter additional obstacles and worse outcomes, and that is simply not acceptable. The aim of the Bill is to enable every family to access high-quality support. That important principle is supported by many experts, including the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The second important point about the Bill is the period that it focuses on. For someone struggling with their mental health, it is vital that the support kicks in at the very early stages of the 1,001 days. As others have said, the systems too often kick in when people are at crisis point, but for support to be effective it has to kick in early. It is about identifying the vulnerability early; building trusted relationships with the midwives, GPs and health visitors providing care; providing continuity of care; and ensuring that mums feel seen, heard and supported long before the difficulties become overwhelming. There must be the possibility of being referred to specialist services if necessary. Once the baby gets to the age of two, it can be too late. They have already formed their early understanding of the world, and the family has had to get through that really tough first phase, so that time period is critical.

Thirdly, it is absolutely right that the Bill extends the statutory support in a wide-ranging way across infants, parents and carers. It is not enough to focus on just one member or one part of the family. On mental health, my speech has obviously focused on pregnant and new mums, but it is equally vital to consider the needs of fathers, partners and other carers at that time. There was a very worrying Samaritans study from Wales recently, which showed for the first time, in an evidence-based way, the really high rates of suicide among new dads and the many barriers to support that they face. That should compel us to act.

There are good examples out there of good support to dads. I was talking to the mental health midwives at my local hospital, Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury, and they use something called the DadPad, which has a book that comes alongside it. It has easily accessible information and advice about how dads can look after themselves and give their child the best start in life. That good advice is out there, but it is not routinely available, so I see the potential of the Bill ensuring that everyone who needs that guidance can access it.

Fourthly, it is right that the nature of the support in the Bill is very broadly defined. It is obviously for the Government to work further on. A model of broad, cross-cutting, joined-up support is embedded in the Government’s Best Start family hubs programme. I am proud that they have introduced it and are driving it forward. It is already benefiting my constituents, and the Best Start family hub Elmhurst is opening this month. With those mental health teams, infant feeding support teams, SEND support teams, maternity care, primary care, health visitors and the voluntary sector all co-located in one place, families will be able to access the joined-up support that they need, whatever that might be.

There is also such an important opportunity for the voluntary sector to dock in with other services on offer from the local authority and the NHS. Often, that sector is overlooked in these debates, but if we did not have such brilliant active voluntary and community organisations across our constituencies, a lot more women and families would fall through the cracks.

[Chris Kane]

I thank my hon. Friend for her compelling speech and for sharing so much about her own story. On the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, we often get a sense that all this great operational learning is going on in communities, but it does not always turn into strategic learning back in Parliament. The Bill talks about a report of the year, but if the report comes back and no one reads it, we cannot learn how to do better. Does my hon. Friend agree that learning the great lessons that are going on in our communities is important for us, and that we should not lose sight of that in the Bill? We should learn at our level from the lessons going on in communities, to help what we do here.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

I agree, and my hon. Friend makes an important point. We see these pockets of good practice across the country, but too often they are not flagged up through the system. Certainly, we in this House do not become aware of them. Part of the potential of the Bill is that, through those reporting mechanisms, we will get a better sense of what works and what does not, with the potential to roll that out and scale it up.

I pay tribute to the brilliant PANDAS group in my constituency, which offers tea and coffee, and toys for the kids, but is also a really supportive space for new mums to meet other mums who may also be struggling. There are such organisations across the country—Mothers for Mothers in Bristol does fantastic work along those lines. I went to a wonderful session by Breathe Melodies, which works across London to harness the power of community and singing to bring mums—and dads now—together and to provide that support. Sport in Mind is more about getting people out and walking, and also talking. There are fantastic voluntary groups, and we need to think about plugging them into the support that would be provided through the Bill.

As others have said powerfully, a baby cannot tell us when they are struggling or when their family is struggling. They cannot navigate a complex and fragmented healthcare system or advocate for improved services. A baby relies on us, as legislators, to ensure that that support exists. That is why the Bill is so important. My ask as we consider this legislation is that we recognise that supporting perinatal mental health and, more broadly, the mental health of parents and carers, is fundamental to that ambition and such a key determinant of whether the infants, parents and carers at the heart of the Bill go on to thrive.

Health Bill (Second sitting)

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Morgan]

Q My second question is about Healthwatch. The Committee heard this morning about the variability of Healthwatch’s effectiveness at a local level. What could be done to ensure that the best and most effective Healthwatch practice is rolled out across the whole of England?

Professor Croisdale-Appleby: Thank you for that question. One of the reasons there is a difference or variation among the 153 is that the amount of funding is very different. Some of them get 10 times the funding of others, which makes a difference to the scope of what they can do. What it does not allow—and I think Healthwatch England has an important contributory role in this—is a change in the quality of the way in which the research is done.

One of the things that I have encouraged very strongly—although it happened before I joined Healthwatch—is the use of qualitative as well as quantitative data. The system is awash with quantitative data, but that does not necessarily cut through to the way that people are, the way they think, the lexicon they use, the concepts they use in communication etc. One of the great strides that Healthwatch England and our 153-member network have made is the intelligent use of qualitative data. That is an art in itself—I would like to think that is a science, but it is certainly an art.

It would be easy to remedy that, in the sense that if the funding were more equitable, some of that variation would disappear, but the variation is not in the quality, the effectiveness of the listening or the ability to look thoroughly at the impact, and it does not affect the fact that the organisations concerned are held responsible for what happens to the recommendations in terms of implementation. That is uniform across the system—it is just the amount of it that will vary naturally, because of the differential funding.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

Q To go back to the single patient record, I see huge potential—at least in my constituency, where we have real challenges with GPs and hospitals not talking to each other or sharing information. Nor do trusts and local authorities across Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire share that information. Sarah has touched on this a bit already, but I am interested to hear from our other witnesses on how they think the single patient record would improve patient experience, and on how we would go about building public understanding and trust in a new system.

James Cooper: There are some big opportunities in the single patient record, with the caveats that Sarah mentioned on data governance and consent. For families of children who are seriously ill, it presents huge opportunities, as I said earlier, because of the complexity of their needs. Often, huge amounts of information need to be conveyed to any professional who the children come into contact with, wherever that is across health, education or social care.

Many professionals have a long-standing relationship with such families, whether they are NHS community children’s nurses, consultants with a speciality in the child’s condition or children’s hospice teams, but families often need to access emergency unplanned care, perhaps in the middle of the night or at weekends. In those instances, when they speak to paramedics and emergency doctors, it is imperative that they can convey the information as quickly as possible. In those instances, I can see huge benefits.

With issues such as advanced care planning, to reflect the needs and wishes of those families, in particular as the child is coming towards the end of their life, I think it is critical that the whole range of professionals involved in the care of children has access to that information. I will welcome much more clarity from the Government about when the families will benefit from that particular initiative.

Professor Croisdale-Appleby: May I add a short comment?

[The Chair]

By all means.

Professor Croisdale-Appleby: We have to recognise that a tremendous amount of work is done in the health and social care system with people who have multiple comorbidities—not just one thing, but a number of things that often interact together. Without a single patient record, we can find that a consultant or a GP has access to only one part of that multiple comorbidity, as it were. That can lead to all sorts of unforeseen errors. I think that that is an important point to make about the great advantage that we can get from a single patient record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q Sally, you have said a bit on this already, but could you say a bit more about how the single patient record could change and improve day-to-day experiences of the health and social care system, and the safeguards that you might be concerned about?

Sally Burlington: As I understand it, the safeguards around data sharing remain in place under the Bill—they do not change. The part of the single patient record that is really attractive to our world is that people will not have to repeat themselves to every professional they meet; they will not have to tell their story again and again or be retraumatised by explaining the detail of what they have been through.

The potential advantages are there, but there are obviously concerns about data protection and how data is used. It is incumbent on us all to take those seriously, think them through and make sure that safeguards are appropriately implemented locally and in all the institutions that have access. That is probably a matter less for the Bill and more for the implementation and supporting regulations, but we and other partners will be keen to be a part of that process to make sure that the safeguards are appropriate.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

Q I come from a county with really significant health inequalities—people in the wealthy parts of the county live 10 or 12 years longer than people in some of the more deprived parts of Aylesbury, which I represent. I would love to hear your thoughts on how we ensure that local authorities, ICBs and the voluntary sector continue working well together through this, and specifically how we do that in a way that drives the reduction we need in health inequalities.

Maria Higson: I think we are all agreed that working at the neighbourhood level is absolutely the right way to go about that. That is where health inequalities can best be addressed, because that can be most nuanced and tailored. Working on that smaller footprint is really important. You mentioned voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, and I think that is a hugely important part that has broadly been missed out from the conversation around these changes. We work closely with VCSE partners and we know they deliver huge amounts for the communities and understand the communities in which they are embedded very well, so making sure that the VCSE voice is part of those neighbourhood teams will be important for that nuance and tailoring in the local element.

Councillor Wright: I agree entirely. Local authorities are in a good position to engage the voluntary and community sector. But again, we are fighting for a voice with the NHS and they are fighting for a voice with us, so we need some honest conversations with ICBs, and a real strategy looking at those health inequalities and what is driving them. It will not purely be access to hospitals; it will also be access to meaningful employment, housing, transport, mental health or social isolation—there will be so much driving those wider determinants of health that are affecting healthy life expectancy. Local authorities are in a prime position to do that, and they need to be listened to. I think the challenge will be how we collectively say, “What needs to be done, other than implementing the Bill? How do we look at the whole health inequality picture and address it?”

Sally Burlington: I would agree with the others: tackling health inequalities is really difficult. Doing it the same way in every area would not work, particularly in a world where there is not enough resource to do everything we would all like to do. You have to tailor how you approach local service delivery and what is needed locally according to local needs, the local community capability, how people work and what their preferences are locally, and the neighbourhood health agenda is our best shot at tailoring in that way.

I think you will come on to Healthwatch, but we would have concerns that, in separating the Healthwatch duties to look at NHS and social care, we risk missing some of those who are most likely to need both, and that that could exacerbate health inequalities rather than make them better.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

Q Which organisations or people do you envisage running the neighbourhood health centres? Will they be run out of general practice organisations, or will the local authorities themselves be best placed to run them, so as to join up hospital care with community services?

Councillor Wright: That is quite interesting; I was at a session this morning looking at communities, and there was a comment that for the NHS communities are about buildings, whereas for the local authority they are about people. I think it would be the ICBs and whoever they commissioned to provide neighbourhood health centres. I hope there would be enough input from the voluntary sector, the local authority, adult social care and public health—from everyone—but I see the ICBs as the commissioners and the people who organise them.

Hughes Report: Second Anniversary

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Green]

I do agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for his intervention.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

This is about so many different aspects of support. One of the recommendations in the Hughes report that has been drawn to my attention is the one on housing, which is so crucial. My constituent was prescribed sodium valproate during pregnancy. Her son, who is now 25, lives with foetal valproate syndrome, requires 24/7 support, and will do for the rest of his life. My constituent said that even relatively modest adjustments to their home and some specialist equipment could make a real difference, but she has not found any way of getting funding for that. Does the hon. Member agree that housing is also a really important area for us to look at?

[Sarah Green]

I do agree, and I thank the hon. Member for raising it.

I know that many colleagues present have been championing this cause for years. There is a string of parliamentary questions going back to the launch of the report two years ago, asking for progress updates. The Patient Safety Commissioner herself used her statutory powers for the first time, in October last year, to ask for more detailed answers from the Department of Health and Social Care. The responses were published in November and just a few weeks ago in January. We now know that there have been meetings, roundtables and briefings, but no progress on redress. If I am reading between the lines of these responses correctly, it is the dead hand of the Treasury that is the issue.

Before I conclude, I wish to mention Carol. I have shared Carol’s story before, and I return to it today because it lays bare the cost of years of Government inaction. When I first met her online—I hope she will not mind my saying this—she was a physical wreck. She needed assistance to get a visa to the US during the pandemic for urgent medical treatment following a hysteropexy and rectopexy using surgical mesh. A procedure that was intended to resolve her pelvic organ prolapse instead caused devastating harm.

Carol was left with a serious autoimmune disease, struggling to walk and unable to live her daily life. Her prognosis was bleak, and she needed to have the mesh urgently removed. That treatment was not available to her on the NHS. While suffering from chronic pain, and with limited mobility, Carol accessed private treatment in the United States. A combination of determination, medical knowledge and personal resources allowed her to do so, and Carol is now mesh-free following a successful surgery.

Carol attempted to pursue a clinical negligence claim against the surgeons who harmed her, but multiple law firms declined to act because the same surgeons were advising them on other cases. Those conflicts of interest blocked Carol’s access to justice. In one case, the surgeon who caused her life-changing harm acted as an expert witness in an unrelated mesh case. The judge in that case found that the surgeon selectively chose evidence supportive of the defence, failed to provide balanced evidence, and failed in his duty to the court. That finding is on the record.

Such conflicts are not isolated. Conflicts of interest and the closing of ranks among professionals remain a structural barrier to justice for victims. That is just one of the reasons why an independent redress scheme is long overdue. The current system is failing these women, children and families.

I have two questions for the Minister. What conversations are she, her Department and her officials having with the Treasury and Downing Street to make redress a reality for the victims? Will she meet some of the affected families to hear directly from them why redress is so important to them?

Health and Social Care

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Written Corrections

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity care.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity and neonatal care.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

… We have invested more than £131 million to improve neonatal care facilities, brought in a new maternity care bundle, implemented a programme to reduce the two leading causes of avoidable brain injury during labour, and increased maternal mental health services. There is so much more to do, however, to guarantee safety now and into the future, and also to ensure truth, justice and accountability for past failures.

[Official Report, 13 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 734.]

Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting):

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity care.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity and neonatal care.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

As the House knows, I am deeply concerned by the state of maternity care in the NHS that we inherited. While the majority of births go well, I know from the courage of families who have spoken up and the concern of staff that devastating impacts are arising from failures in care. That is why I asked Baroness Amos to chair an independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services to drive urgent action, but that has not stopped us from taking action in the meantime. We have invested more than £131 million to improve neonatal care facilities, brought in a new maternity care bundle, implemented a programme to reduce the two leading causes of avoidable brain injury during labour, and increased maternal mental health services. There is so much more to do, however, to guarantee safety now and into the future, and also to ensure truth, justice and accountability for past failures.

[Wes Streeting]

Everyone accessing maternity care should be offered a personalised care and support plan, informed by a personalised risk assessment. That is so women have more control over their own care based on what matters to them and their individual needs and preferences, as well as to ensure that every woman understands the risk factors that might arise in her case. A caesarean section is generally a very safe procedure, but like any type of surgery, it carries a risk of complications. All women should have the confidence of knowing that the doctors and midwives dealing with them are robustly trained to deal with severe complications, including haemorrhage. That is why the maternity care bundle, as well as other measures, will lead to greater safety, more information and, crucially, the personalisation of care and patient choice for the mother.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

I welcome the new maternal care bundle and its ambition to drive consistently high standards of care for every pregnant and new mum. It is great that maternal mental health is one of the five elements prioritised; I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his focus on that. The challenge now is to drive forward its implementation. Can he say more about how he intends to do that, and in particular how he will ensure that NHS staff are trained and confident enough to better screen and support women who are struggling with their mental health?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue, and I commend her for the work she is doing in this area. There is a real risk of post-natal depression. Certainly where there have been complications in birth or, worse still, injury or the most unimaginable experience of loss, we need to make sure that women and their partners and the wider families are supported from day one. That does not just mean training and support for staff and making sure that they are doing emotional wellbeing screening; it also means thinking more thoughtfully about estates. One thing that has really struck me is the experience of women who have suffered loss during labour who are asked, during the care that follows, to go back to the very maternity units where their unimaginable pain was first endured. Those are difficult issues to challenge, and it will require investment, but those are the sorts of areas we are getting into as we think more thoughtfully about how to ensure that we take care of not just the physical health of the mother and baby, but the mental health and wellbeing of mother and the wider family.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to improve patient access to GPs.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to improve patient access to GPs.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

I am pleased to report that both access to general practice and patient satisfaction with general practice have improved since Labour came to office. Over 75% of patients find it easy to contact their practice —an improvement of 14 percentage points since the general election. Not only have we recruited an extra 2,500 GPs; crucially, more patients are receiving continuity of care, backed by an additional £1.1 billion. Lots done, lots to do, and certainly a long way to go, but general practice is on the road to recovery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

The number of qualified GPs in Buckinghamshire has risen by 8% in the last year thanks to this Government’s determination to recruit and retain more GPs. It is a great start, but I still hear from too many people in Aylesbury who cannot get through to their GP surgery or cannot get a quick enough appointment when they do. My constituent Jane, whose husband had suffered a stroke, was advised that he needed a GP appointment the next day, but it took a month to get one. I know my right hon. Friend is determined to keep improving access to primary care for people in Aylesbury and across the country, so can he set out his next steps?

[Wes Streeting]

I certainly can, and I am sorry that my hon. Friend’s constituent was let down. Everyone who needs a same-day appointment should be able to book one, and that is what we are working towards. As she says, we are recruiting more GPs. We are also investing £102 million to create additional space for appointments, including in 21 GP practices in my hon. Friend’s local integrated care board system. Nowhere is the state of the NHS, and the crumbling legacy we inherited, more evident than in the NHS estate, and that is why I am proud that in her Budget, the Chancellor will be setting out plans to roll out a new generation of neighbourhood health centres to deal with the crumbling NHS we inherited and to build an NHS that is fit for the future.

Postural Tachycardia Syndrome

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Cat Smith]

I very much agree.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. One of my Aylesbury constituents has become a full-time carer for her 25-year-old son, who is affected by PoTS; he developed it at university, had to drop out and now is unable to work. Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that we know that PoTS is most likely to develop in young adulthood, we need a particular focus on that age group as we think about increasing recognition, diagnosis and treatment of PoTS?

[Cat Smith]

I very much agree.

Suicide Prevention

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) on securing this debate. I will focus my contribution on the suicide risks during the perinatal period, which is the period from pregnancy through to the year after a child’s birth.

I have spoken in the House before about the tragic death of my wonderful friend Sophie, who took her own life four years ago, leaving behind her husband and her three little girls aged six, three and just 10 weeks old. I have been feeling the sadness of her death again this week, looking at the photos of her youngest now setting off to primary school for the first time, beaming with pride, and I know Sophie would have been so proud too.

I still vividly recall the shock of the moment I learned that she had died when the message came through from her husband. It was only after we lost her that I learned just what a risk there is of suicide in this period of life. One in four people experience some form of post-natal depression or anxiety, which is still poorly recognised as an issue generally, and it is something I campaign on. The vast majority go on to recover, but for some people it is very serious, and for some it is so unbearable that they end their lives. The leading cause of death for women in that period from six weeks to a year after the birth of their child is suicide.

The Maternal Mental Health Alliance has delved into the data and found some more alarming details—in particular, the persistent social, economic and racial inequalities in who dies and who survives. Women in the most deprived areas have much higher rates of death. Black women are more than twice as likely to die as white women, and women of Asian and mixed ethnic backgrounds also face elevated risks.

With these risks and Sophie’s death in mind, I want to offer three reflections. The first is that we are all vulnerable—each and every one of us. Of the women who die by suicide, nearly half have known mental health problems, but the rest do not. It is a time when the social pressures are really great. People expect you to be revelling in the joy of the new baby, but the reality for many is that there are challenges in caring for the baby: not enough sleep, not enough company, feelings of loneliness, failure and guilt, and the loss of the sense of self—the old you that you knew before having children, which you fear is gone forever. This can make it a very difficult period for many women, including people who have not struggled with their mental health before. It is so important that we are all cognisant of this in ourselves and others around us.

My second reflection is that we all carry a responsibility to each other. I still look back on Sophie’s death and blame myself; I ask whether I could have done more. As Paul Doble, a fascinating therapist working in my constituency of Aylesbury, recently put it to me, the reality is that we cannot prevent every suicide, but we must never be afraid to try. The real question is how we support people better when they are suicidal, knowing that our compassion, care and presence may not remove every risk but can make life more bearable, and our question may be the one that interrupts their suicidal thoughts and leads them to different choices. Again, that is something we must all be cognisant of.

My third point is that the Government have to keep taking suicide risk and suicide prevention really seriously, as I know they do. I hope we will hear more on the suicide prevention strategy from the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), who I welcome to his place. We know that the care a suicidal person receives can make a big difference. We have some fantastic specialist perinatal mental health services, but I have heard from so many women who cannot access them. Suicide risk needs to be assessed in all the routine maternity care a woman receives, and support given if necessary. The same is true of so many other parts of the NHS and other public services, where action can make the difference between life and death. The role of public health interventions in this—for example, social and emotional learning programmes in schools—is crucial, too.

Conscious of time, I will end it there, but I hope that this World Suicide Prevention Day is a turning point in saving lives and tackling this immense challenge in our society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I can certainly reassure the shadow Minister on this. The Minister for Public Health has already accepted that recommendation and is working at pace on implementation. May I wish the hon. Lady well in the Opposition reshuffle?

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the 10-year health plan for England on perinatal mental health.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

The 10-year health plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including for women during the perinatal period. During the year to April 2025, a record 64,805 women accessed maternal mental health services or specialist community perinatal mental health services, such as those at the Whiteleaf centre in Aylesbury. The Department for Education is also investing £500 million to roll out Best Start family hubs to all local authorities in England, which will also support new mums.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

I am really grateful to the Minister for her answer and for her focus on this. I would like to ask about midwives, who do incredible work supporting parents and babies, including identifying and supporting women who are facing mental health challenges. We desperately need more of them, yet the Royal College of Midwives has found that eight out of 10 student midwives who are due to qualify this year are not confident that they will find jobs. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that newly qualified midwives are able to find work?

[Karin Smyth]

I recognise my hon. Friend’s great work in this place to support women on this issue. We recognise that newly qualified midwives are experiencing challenges in gaining that first role. That is partly due to the record number of midwives in post and to better retention rates. NHS England is working with employers, universities and regional midwifery leads to help midwives find those roles after qualification and to transition into workforce, and we will keep a close eye on that with them.