Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to promote breastfeeding.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Public Health England (PHE) is committed to improving breastfeeding rates across England and has identified breastfeeding as a key priority within our maternity and child health programmes.
PHE works nationally to support local authorities (LAs) to improve breastfeeding rates. PHE, in partnership with the United Nations International Childrens’ Emergency Fund (UNICEF), published an infant feeding commissioning toolkit to support the commissioning of interventions to improve breastfeeding rates, available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infant-feeding-commissioning-services
LAs and their partners are encouraged to provide a comprehensive universal service with access to specialist support when needed. The PHE breastfeeding fingertips profiles allow local areas to see performance against a range of indicators supporting them to plan and review services and local population needs. More information is available at the following link:
PHE supports action to improve breastfeeding rates through evidence to provide guidance to professionals, and address health inequalities. The guidance includes six high impact areas for early years aimed at health visitors includes promotion of breastfeeding and is available at the following link:
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to use health visitors to reduce health inequalities by (a) increasing the amount and time duration of breast feeding and (b) extending early educational intervention.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Local authorities have a duty to improve the health of their populations through the use of the public health grant. Public Health England (PHE) supports this through evidence to address health inequalities and guidance to professionals.
The six High Impact Areas for Early Years focus on key areas where health visitors have a significant impact on health and wellbeing and improving outcomes for children, families and communities. The guidance includes promotion of breastfeeding and health, wellbeing and development of the child aged two. Further information on the Six High Impact Areas is available to view here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/commissioning-of-public-health-services-for-children
PHE works with local services to create breastfeeding friendly communities, with midwives and health visitors to promote best practice, and, through our Start4Life social marketing programme, to provide parents with trusted National Health Service advice.
PHE has developed an infant feeding commissioning resource in partnership with Unicef to support local authorities in the delivery of a comprehensive approach to the commissioning of services that protect, promote and support breastfeeding. PHE also shares innovative approaches for supporting breastfeeding.