Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what account will be taken of Scottish maternity and neonatal review during the neonatal transformation review process.

The Scottish maternity and neonatal review is a well-conceived document that will be used in the deliberations of the Neonatal Review.

Networks have been formally established in England for 15 years and are now configured as Operational Delivery Networks which provide an important role in coordinating and quality assurance of locally delivered care.

The NHS England Clinical Reference Group is coordinating both the Neonatal Transformation Review and the progress of the Quality Surveillance Team’s Peer Review of Neonatal Services. The results of both have been designed to complement each other and minimise the work required of the local neonatal teams. Both processes will feed into the work of the Local Maternity Systems and Operational Delivery Networks over the next 12 months to ensure that we have a coordinated approach to improving the specialist care available for babies, alongside the initiatives developed by Better Births.