“Maternity Matters: Choice, access and continuity of care in a safe service” published on 3 April sets out the Government’s framework for services to provide safe, high quality maternity care. The priority for modern maternity services is to enable the whole pregnancy experience to be as safe and satisfying as possible for mother and baby and to support new parents to have a confident start to family life.
In line with the vision set out in the report of the Department’s Expert Review Group on Neonatal Intensive Care, published in 2003, we have facilitated the development of 24 neonatal managed clinical networks to provide safe and effective services for mothers and babies. Since April 2003 over £70 million additional funding has been made available to support the development of these networks. This is in addition to the general increase in national health service funding, from which neonatal services can also benefit. Because of improvements in technology and the development of health care expertise, greater numbers of very small babies are being born alive and surviving. In the past many of these babies would have died just before or just after birth.