Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of trends in rates of perinatal mortality in Kingston upon Hull North constituency.

No specific assessment has been made.

The Government’s national maternity safety ambition aims to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries in babies occurring during or soon after birth, by 2025. Since 2010, the stillbirth rate has reduced 19.3%, the neonatal mortality rate for babies born over the 24-week gestational age of viability has reduced by 36%, and the proportion of babies born preterm has reduced from 8% in 2017 to 7.5% in 2020.

We have introduced targeted interventions to accelerate progress, such as the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle and the Brain Injury Reduction Programme. NHS England has also invested £127 million in National Health Service maternity workforce and improving neonatal care. This is in addition to the £95 million investment made in 2021 to fund the establishment of a further 1,200 midwifery and 100 consultant obstetrician posts. NHS England is offering funding and support to trusts to recruit an additional 300 to 500 overseas midwives in the next 12 months.