Eluned Morgan, Minister for Health and Social Services
Today I am launching a national Maternity and Neonatal Safety Support Programme in Wales (MatneoSSP Wales), supported by £1.15million. This Programme will ensure clear and consistent approaches to maternity and neonatal safety within all services in Wales. The key driver for the Programme is to improve the safety, experience and outcomes of maternal and neonatal care and provide support to enable teams to deliver a high quality healthcare experience for all pregnant people, babies and families across maternity and neonatal care settings in Wales.
I have asked officials to consolidate existing maternity and neonatal improvement activities into a single Programme, and to engage with key partners and stakeholders over the next few months as part of a discovery phase to consider the additional priority actions we must take in the future.
This Maternity and Neonatal Safety Support Programme will place a greater, co-ordinated emphasis on existing activities. The Programme will strengthen national direction for maternity and neonatal services, bringing together the maternity vision with a proposed neonatal vision which will share key priorities and themes.
I am delighted that Improvement Cymru will be providing expertise and resources to work alongside health boards to identify key priorities and improvements within the first phase of the Programme. The first phase of the Programme will report to Ministers in 2022/23.
I recognise within this Programme the importance of maternity and neonatal services as the foundation stone to future health and wellbeing and providing every child with the best start in life.