Meeting of the Parliament 21 February 2017
Anas Sarwar fails to recognise that we in Scotland have a good record on delivering maternity services. Although there are challenges, as outlined in the report, there are things of which we should be proud. We have an innovative midwifery workload and workforce planning tool, which is a first in the United Kingdom. That has helped to ensure that the NHS in Scotland continues to meet the RCM recommended midwife to birth ratio—unlike other parts of the UK, about which the RCM makes it clear that there is a shortage of midwives. In Scotland, we are leading in delivering for women around the country.
Keeping babies and parents together is why we want to transform delivery of maternity services. We want to ensure that women are kept alongside their babies, because we know how important that is for bonding, for attachment, for breastfeeding and for a host of positive outcomes for the sickest babies.
The recommendations for reducing the number of specialist neonatal care services around the country from five to three is based on clinical evidence about what works for a very small proportion of babies. We are doing all that we can to ensure that we have good outcomes for those sick babies, and we are taking the recommendations forward at comfortable pace and scale in order to ensure that we transform how care is given and improve outcomes for babies. We need to unite behind that. What we do has to be based on clinical evidence that tells us what is best for the babies around our country.
As I said in my statement, we will look at accommodation and transport to ensure that people who live in rural areas are able to access specialist care in a way that is comfortable for them and which does not cause unnecessary stresses and strains. We know that stresses and strains have happened in the past and we want to eliminate that to ensure that every mother gets the very best care and that every child gets the best start in life.