Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve (a) access to overnight accommodation and (b) facilities in maternity and neonatal care units for parents of premature or sick babies; and if he will make a statement.

Concerns about the availability of overnight accommodation were highlighted in a report by Bliss ‘Families kept apart: barriers to parents’ involvement in their baby’s hospital care’ (published September 2016). Along with NHS England, we are considering the recommendations of the report and continue to work closely with Bliss and others to improve neonatal services so that all premature and sick babies receive the best possible care.

This Government is committed to improving maternity and neonatal care. In November 2015 the Secretary of State announced a a national ambition to halve the number of neonatal deaths, stillbirths, maternal deaths and brain injuries occurring during or soon after birth by 2030. Investment has been made in training for staff, new safety equipment and facilities in hospitals for new families, including a £2.24 million capital fund to enable trusts to buy monitoring or training equipment to improve safety in their maternity services.

On 17 October my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State launched the Safer Maternity Care action plan which sets out the next steps to achieve the ambition. The action plan sets out a number of new initiatives including an increase in funding for maternity safety training to support maternity services to drive improvements in safety and a new £250,000 Maternity Safety Innovation Fund to support development and implementation of improvements in maternity safety.