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 help increase the early identification and treatment of congenital septal defect in newborns.

NHS England’s Clinical Reference Group has identified that there is still scope for improvement in antenatal diagnosis rates for congenital heart defects and has established a work stream which has commenced in summer 2023 to understand any variation in foetal cardiology services across England. This group is currently gathering evidence on the availability and capacity of foetal cardiology services across the country, with the aim of producing subsequent recommendations to NHS England.