Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the report by Bliss, entitled Neonatal care and admissions variation in the provisions for the parents of babies receiving neonatal care; and if he will take steps to reduce those variations.

This Government is committed to improving maternity and neonatal care. In November 2015 my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced a national ambition to halve the number of neonatal deaths, stillbirths, maternal deaths and brain injuries occurring during or soon after birth by 2030. The Department is working closely with NHS England to make progress on the ambition and implement the NHS England led Maternity Transformation Programme, a programme set up to deliver the National Maternity Review’s recommendations, outlined in the report Better Births.

The Better Births publication set out the vision for maternity services across England. It also outlined that a dedicated review of neonatal services should be taken forward in light of the overall maternity review findings. Within that context, and linked to NHS England’s Maternity Transformation Programme, the Neonatal Critical Care Clinical Reference Group, chaired by Professor Neil Marlow, is carrying out a review of neonatal services. That review is ongoing and will report in September 2017 but it has acknowledged that adequate support and facilities for parents are integral to the provision of centred care.

The review has completed its data gathering stage and will be working with Bliss and other stakeholders to develop recommendations for service improvement, including the support and facilities for parents.