§ Mr. JackTo ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to publish the Government's response to the Social Services Select Committee report on perinatal, neonatal and infant mortality; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MellorThe Government's response was published today. It sets out details of a major new initiative on infant 139W mortality. The infant mortality rate for England and Wales is at a new low and clinical advances and improved services mean more babies survive than ever before. There is no room for complacency however. Every effort must be made to secure further improvements and address issues such as geographical variations and the phenomenon of sudden infant death.
Service improvements will continue and the Government do not accept that these call for central earmarking of resources or attempts at central direction on the way services are provided locally. What is needed now is to find out more precisely why particular babies die and how as many as possible of these deaths can in future be prevented. This is the focus of the initiatives set out in the response. A central feature is the application of the principles of clinical audit set out in the White Paper "Working for Patients" through the development by the professions concerned of a confidential inquiry into at least a sample of stillbirths and infant deaths.
This central initiative is supplemented by measures designed to increase the National Health Services' capacity to undertake specialist paediatric pathological examinations and to establish, on a comprehensive basis, regional epidemiological surveys of stillbirths and neonatal deaths. In addition the Medical Research Council has agreed to carry out a major review of the present literature relating to sudden infant death syndrome and to advise on what further research is needed.
The Government believe that these initiatives will achieve the objectives, which it shares with the Select Committee—namely, continued improvement in the maternity services and health services for the newborn in the decades to come in order to reduce infant mortality to the lowest possible levels.