6. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on Maternity Services and Governance Improvements at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:22 pm on 13 October 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 6:22, 13 October 2020

I'll deal with the last point first. So, every woman should have a community midwife who can give them direct access to support and guidance for their pregnancy, if they would otherwise have been giving birth in the Tirion birth centre, to explain to them the variety of alternatives that are available. And that's potentially not just within the health board, because I do know that Cwm Taf Morgannwg in particular have been working with Cardiff and Vale to make sure that they can support each other, given the outbreak in the Royal Glamorgan and given the impact that the inability to fully staff and safely staff the Tirion birth centre has actually put back the opening of that midwife-led unit.

In terms of your two other points, on support, every health board has a lead for both bereavement support, but more generally support in any event, and we are looking for every health board—including Cwm Taf—to have support in line with both the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, and the bereavement midwives in Cwm Taf will have had contact with a range of people around the family. Some of this is actually about going through historic issues, though, as opposed to the more usual experience of support nearer the time of bereavement, and that's why we've engaged with a range of external partners to offer that support. But any family who is concerned, upon receiving their report, or even in advance of receiving their report—all families have direct contact lines to go into the panel itself and to ask for that support, and they also have had the opportunity to have contact with the community health counsellor, who, to be fair, I think have done a good job in supporting women and their families to understand the options open to them and to support them, and again to understand what matters to them and to support them in finding that appropriate support and route forward.

On your point about community confidence that improvement is being made, that is a substantial part of the reason we're having this independent panel process: to openly and transparently set out what progress is being made, not by people who are employed by the health board, but people who have been engaged directly by the Welsh Government who don't provide a service in Wales. And part of that is the really important direct engaging of one of the panel members and a group of women in terms of re-understanding how maternity services should work and be improved within the area. So, there's a direct link, there's access and understanding, and it's about being very open and transparent. So, with all of the reports that we've had with the quarterly improvement reports, I've made sure that families receive that report first, before it goes into the public domain, so families do not read in the news what the reports say, and we've arranged previously direct access in terms of the opportunity to have a question and answer with panel members when the reports have been published. So, we're making sure that there are direct links and routes for those families, and indeed the wider communities they live in. And we need to continue that approach, as we hope that Cwm Taf will continue, in its new form as Cwm Taf Morgannwg, on this improvement journey to deliver the high-quality services that I want for my constituents, and I believe that every part of Wales should be able to enjoy as well.