Baby Loss Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Health
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to some of the points that have been raised during this excellent debate. It is important to recognise and welcome the cross-party support from Members, including the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). We heard 14 contributions from other Members, including five, by my count, who have personally suffered—or their families have suffered—the loss or miscarriage of a baby, as well as two from experienced doctors: my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who brought their particular expertise to the debate. I am grateful for the support from Members on both sides of the House for the Government’s action plan—for what we have done in the 12 months since our last debate on this subject, and for what we are planning to do A number of issues have been raised today. I will not go into detail about Members’ constituency concerns, although I will say to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) that when, as a Shropshire Member, I was dealing with one of my constituents who suffered an inability to find out what had happened to the ashes of the baby they had lost, which was similar to what occurred in Hull, my experience was of talking to the local authority and persuading it that this was the right thing to do. I should be happy to help the hon. Lady, if she needs help from the Department, to emphasise again to her local authority that it is indeed the right thing to do Members have challenged me on a couple of issues, particularly that of coroners’ reports. We are introducing a perinatal mortality review tool to allow investigations to be undertaken, with information collated in a manner that can then inform and be learned from. We will watch with interest what happens in Scotland, but at this point I think we need to get the tool working and see how it goes. In my opening speech, I mentioned the health service safety investigations branch on which we are consulting. We envisage it as having a role in looking at some of the more extreme cases, but only if it decides to do so A number of colleagues talked about the use of private Members’ Bills to try to drive this agenda forward. I can confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that the Government will support his Bill on bereavement leave, which was also mentioned in the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton). I cannot promise that we will support all the other measures that the all-party parliamentary group comes up with, but we will certainly look at them with interest Following last night’s launch of the national bereavement care pathway, I am particularly pleased, in Baby Loss Awareness Week, that that has received so much support from the APPG, the charities and the healthcare professionals who work in this field. Finally, let me say a big thank you to all the midwives, doctors and healthcare support workers who do such a fantastic job, delivering more than 700,000 babies successfully and also helping parents who, sadly, do not experience the happiness of a healthy baby Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Baby Loss Awareness week.