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 ensure that clinicians follow NHS guidance and best practice on child twin and triplet delivery.

The Department expects all clinicians to use the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines to inform their clinical practice. However, to further promote consistency in the levels of maternity care experienced across trusts, all maternity services now have one obstetrician, one midwife and one board level Maternity Safety Champion jointly responsible for championing maternity safety, spreading learning and encouraging best practice within their organisations. This includes adherence to NICE guidelines on issues such as antenatal care for multiple pregnancies.

In addition, every maternity service in the National Health Service is actively implementing elements of the Saving Babies’ Lives Care Bundle, which is designed to tackle stillbirth and early neonatal death.