Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to (a) reduce the rate of infant mortality and (b) increase the number of full-time members of staff specialising in bereavement care; and if he will make an assessment of the reasons for trends in the level of infant mortality in the last five years.

To reduce the rate of stillbirth and neonatal morality we have introduced targeted interventions such as the implementation of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle and the National Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme.

Saving Babies’ Lives Version Two combines five elements of care, reducing smoking in pregnancy, risk assessment, prevention and surveillance of pregnancies at risk of fetal growth restriction, raising awareness of reduced fetal movement, effective fetal monitoring during labour and reducing preterm birth. The National Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement programme aims to improve the safety and outcomes of maternal and neonatal care by reducing unwarranted variation and provide a high-quality healthcare experience for all women, babies and families across maternity and neonatal care settings in England.

Between 2016 and 2020, the infant mortality rate decreased by 5.3%, from 3.8 to 3.6%, per 1,000 live births. In 2020, the rate for male was higher at 4.0% than for female 3.2%.