Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:06 am on 13 February 2020.
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments as a consultant paediatrician. She is a huge source of advice to me at times, including informally over a cup of tea. On her first question: yes, she is absolutely right to say that the investigations take place at local level and that that goes inwards into the local trust. I think that is something that we have to review. On her question about disseminating learning nationally, that comes through HSIB, but she is right to suggest that HSIB does not go into every investigation. One of the problems with a trust investigating itself and taking the learning inwards is the question of what reassurance we have that lessons are being learned and disseminated, and that improvements are taking place. I am going to ask officials to look at that, because we might have to work on developing a different model for maternity services, although we do have NHS Resolution and the HSIB, and a lot of work is going on in this area. However, we have seen too many cases in too short a space of time, and we now have to look at maternity services and patient safety with fresh eyes and decide how we make this the best for parents who have tragically lost a baby, from that moment onwards until they move forward.