Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy that women who have just given birth in hospital are not sent home between 11pm and 8am.

The Department does not draft policy or provide advice on specific limits on postnatal discharge periods, or the times that women can be discharged from hospital. The length of stay or discharge time in a maternity unit following delivery of a baby is a matter for the clinical judgement of the healthcare professionals involved in the mother’s care. This decision should be reached following discussion with the mother and take into account the health and well-being of the woman and her baby and the level of support available to her following discharge. This is in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines on ‘Routine postnatal care of women and their babies’, published in 2006:

http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG37/Guidance/pdf/English