HC Deb 22 March 1994 vol 240 cc120-1
3. Mr. Amess

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on Basildon's maternity service.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Tom Sackville)

Basildon has an excellent new maternity unit, whose staff expect to deliver 4,000 babies each year.

Mr. Amess

Does my hon. Friend approve of the centralisation of services in Basildon, with a specialist neonatal care unit on site? Will he issue guidelines on the delivery of babies in water? Finally, does he agree that Basildon's maternity service is now the finest in the world?

Mr. Sackville

There is a feeling among Conservative Members that to be born anywhere in Basildon gives one an unfair advantage in life; but to have the benefit of perhaps the most up-to-date, best-managed and best-equipped maternity unit in the country is an additional advantage for this generation.

I am aware that some clinicians believe that water can have advantages in relaxing mothers in labour, but the decision on actual water births must be left to clinicians, midwives and, of course, the mothers themselves.

Mr. Tony Banks

I believe that, at the last count, the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) had fathered five children. Has he not already put far too much pressure on Basildon's maternity service? Would not the decent thing be for the NHS to offer him a large quantity of bromide—or, if it cannot afford that, perhaps a do-it-yourself vasectomy with two bricks?

Mr. Sackville

I must defend my hon. Friend's right to an equal share of NHS facilities.

Mrs. Ann Winterton

When providing maternity services in Basildon and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, will my hon. Friend ensure that full cognisance is taken of the report of the Select Committee on Health? The role of the midwife should be brought to the fore in the provision of service for mothers-to-be, and the wishes of pregnant women in regard to how they are confined should be respected.

Mr. Sackville

I can reassure my hon. Friend that my noble Friend Baroness Cumberlege, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the other place, has done a great deal of work on the whole question of maternity services. Central to her work is the question of the mother's choice.