Historical Stillbirth Burials and Cremations — House of Commons, 2020-02-06
Topic: Health
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (Conservative, Centre-right): I will. If my hon. Friend drops me an email at my departmental address, we will look into that, and the officials will take it away. I am grateful to him for raising that, because I was not aware of it I do not think I have missed out anyone who made a speech. We have heard today how important it is to many parents to find the final resting place of their stillborn children’s remains. Unfortunately, that is not always easy or possible, and I have explained that such records are not currently held by the Government. Rather, they are held by local hospitals that arranged for burials or cremations with local funeral directors or crematoriums. In some cases, records no longer exist, or they may not contain enough detail to be helpful Nevertheless, I reiterate that the Department of Health and Social Care expects all hospitals to provide as much information as they have available to them to any parents who inquire about what happened to their stillborn babies, no matter how long ago they died. I would like to praise the 800 parents who have attempted to find out where their babies’ remains are, because they have helped to raise the profile of this issue. As the hon. Member for Swansea East said, only by raising the profile do we manage to get something done. We need to continue to do that, because that is how we will make progress We have also heard today about the new regulations and systems to ensure that parents are involved, as they want to be, in the burial or cremation arrangements for their stillborn children. Parents are required by law to register a stillbirth, and once registration has been completed the registrar provides parents with all the certification they need to organise their babies’ burial or cremation, and a funeral service if they so wish. The required burial and cremation forms ensure that the wishes of parents are recorded and respected. Many NHS hospitals still do make arrangements for funeral services and support parents to consider various options and to make the decisions that are right for them. Some parents may wish to arrange a private burial or cremation with a funeral director. Most funeral directors do not charge for their services for stillborn babies. Thanks to the hon. Lady’s efforts, the new children’s funeral fund supports parents, as I said in my opening speech A funeral can sometimes be a catalyst for people to begin processing a deeply profound loss. At such a time, parents mourning their stillborn baby need as much emotional support, compassion and understanding as possible. However, the quality of support can vary from one maternity service to another. This is why the Government have funded Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, to work with other baby loss charities and the royal colleges to produce a national bereavement care pathway. The pathway covers a range of circumstances of baby loss, including miscarriage, stillbirth, termination of a pregnancy for medical reasons, neonatal death and sudden infant death syndrome. The NBCP is now embedded in 43 sites, and a further 59 sites have formally expressed their interest in joining the programme I would like to talk a little bit about mental health support. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North is a campaigner on this, and she raised mental health during her speech. A couple of weeks ago, I visited nurses who are delivering perinatal mental health care support. As part of the new approach to and new funding for mental health, there are now specialist perinatal mental health community services in all 44 local NHS areas in England, and further developments are planned. Just in 2018-19, this has enabled over 13,000 additional women to receive support from specialist perinatal mental health services, against a target of 9,000 I spoke to the nurses about the perinatal services that are being delivered, and in that particular trust they have helped 700 women who previously had no assistance whatsoever. It was incredible to hear the stories of how that assistance—the mental health support—is now being given to women. As I have said, all trusts now have in place those perinatal support services, which were never there before. Again, that is a huge step on the path towards delivering services that are focused on women and their needs Via maternity outreach clinics, we are also providing targeted assessment and intervention for women identified with moderate or complex mental health needs arising from or related to their maternity experience who would benefit from specialist support, but where it may not be appropriate or helpful for them to accept specialist perinatal mental health services, so we are even thinking further than that. In those services we are also assisting partners and families, so it is not just for the women, but for their partners and families A huge amount of work is being done in this area. I am not saying that we have finished—there is more to be done—but we are making progress. This actually fits in very well with our women’s agenda in the Department of Health and Social Care. The women’s agenda is not just about periods and menopause; it is about so many things. The particular area we are discussing today is a huge part of that Hon. Members present for the Baby Loss Awareness Week debate last October may recall that I undertook to write to Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, the chief midwifery officer in England, to ask if those bereaved by baby death could be included in the NHS long-term plan commitment to develop maternity outreach clinics that will integrate maternity, reproductive health and psychological therapy support for women with mental health difficulties arising from or related to the maternity experience. I am delighted to tell the House that I recently received a letter from the chief midwifery officer confirming that access to these services is available to women and their partners who are experiencing moderate or complex/severe issues, so we have listened and we have addressed that need. At this point, I should pay tribute to Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent for her understanding of and support for my role in helping to deliver better services to women. As I have said, a funeral can often be a catalyst for helping people to deal with death and stillbirth death, and I believe that that is so important today. It used to be about protecting women or just not holding them in high enough esteem to inform them about what happened, but we now know that actually the opposite is true. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned, it is important to be involved not just in the death, but in what happened before, during and just afterwards. The question parents have at a time like this is: why? That question needs to be answered, and it does not get answered in a sentence or in a minute. Parents need to know and women need to know. They can only feel as though they have fulfilled their own responsibility to their child when they have explored every avenue and know every detail of what happened.