5. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the recent claim by Bliss Scotland that three quarters of the country’s neonatal units do not have enough nurses. (S5F-00793)

I welcome the publication of the report by Bliss Scotland and commend it on the important work that it does in supporting parents who have babies in neonatal care.

Bliss Scotland played a vital part in our own national review and the recommendations that were published last week.

Boards must, of course, ensure that their neonatal units are appropriately and safely staffed. When there are peaks in demand, boards work together at a regional or national level to ensure that babies receive safe levels of care. The neonatal managed clinical networks have put in place processes to manage and escalate concerns if any units are under particular pressure at any time.

I will quote directly to the First Minister what the chief executive of Bliss Scotland, Caroline Lee-Davey, has said about the reality that faces our service in Scotland. She said:

“neonatal units across Scotland are understaffed and under-resourced, and that is putting babies at risk”.

Bliss Scotland’s report states that just two of the units have any plans to recruit the necessary nurses to meet the bare minimum standards for adequate neonatal service provision. After 10 years of being in charge of our health service, will the First Minister apologise to parents throughout Scotland who see this workforce crisis in our national health service?

The First Minister:

It is exactly those challenges, which are not unique to Scotland, that led us to carry out the review. As I said, Bliss Scotland was fully involved in that review.

Miles Briggs quoted the chief executive of Bliss Scotland, Caroline Lee-Davey. I will quote her as well. She said that the review sets out a “progressive” and

“ambitious vision for family-centred care”,

which is good news for the future of Scottish neonatal services,

“and it is particularly welcome” to see the focus on

“mothers and babies being kept together.”

Bliss Scotland is involved in ensuring that we take the action that ensures that there is high-quality neonatal care for babies when and where they need it. We will continue to press on with exactly that action.

I thank Bliss Scotland for a very powerful report.

Last week, the Scottish Government published the national review of maternity and neonatal services. There is a lot in that report that deserves consideration. I urge the First Minister to bring that forward with a statement to the Parliament. A key recommendation in the report is on local services. It says:

“a number of choices ... should be available to all women in Scotland including birth at home, birth in an alongside or freestanding midwifery unit, and hospital birth.”

Given that that recommendation goes against the proposals to close the maternity units at the Vale of Leven hospital and the Inverclyde royal hospital, will the First Minister finally accept the will of the Parliament, call those proposals in, and reject them?

The First Minister:

The proposals that Anas Sarwar talks about in Glasgow and Clyde are not yet firm proposals, and we cannot call in something that has not been made in a firm proposal. The reason for that is that we made very clear that we expect health boards to have regard to the maternity and neonatal review recommendations before they take any decisions of that nature. That is exactly what NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is now doing—it is looking at the recommendations and assessing any decisions that it might want to take in the light of those recommendations.

On the review more widely, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport has already said that, when we have had the opportunity to fully consider the recommendations—Anas Sarwar is right that there is an awful lot of detail in the report—she will of course come to the Parliament and set out the Government’s thinking on how we take that forward. We are determined to act on the review. The key recommendation in it is that every woman should have continuity of care from a primary midwife who provides the Majority of their antenatal, childbirth and post-natal care, as part of a new model of care for maternity services in Scotland. That is presumably why the chief executive of Bliss described it as “progressive” and an

“ambitious vision for family-centred care”,

and we will be proud to get on and make progress on delivering it.