Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason there is no reference to maternal postnatal checks in the NHS Long Term Plan, and what plans his Department has to introduce such checks for new mothers.

Commissioners and providers should ensure that services offer a review of a woman’s physical, emotional and social wellbeing by a healthcare professional at the end of the postnatal period (6-8 weeks). National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines on postnatal care stipulate that a documented, individualised postnatal care plan should be developed with the woman ideally in the antenatal period or as soon as possible after birth.

The Long Term Plan highlights that we will continue to work with midwives, mothers and their families to implement continuity of carer so that, by March 2021, most women receive continuity of the person caring for them during pregnancy, during birth and postnatally.