Newspaper column 30 September 2021 - On baby loss

 

Last week I led the debate in Parliament on to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, which runs from 9 to 15 October.

As co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Baby Loss, along with former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP, I used my speech to highlight the group’s aims for the future, as well as the work it has already been doing in this area.

As someone who has experienced the awful reality of losing a baby first hand, I am  able to use my experience to help make things better for other families who sadly go through their own baby loss journeys every day.

For this year’s speech, I wanted to highlight and raise the profile of issues around wellbeing. One key issue is maternity safety. Every day in the UK around 14 babies die before, during or soon after birth. Although progress has been made, we need to redouble efforts as the current rate of reducing stillbirths means the 2025 target will be missed. To improve safety and prevent avoidable baby deaths the Government must increase investment in maternity services, tackle inequalities in perinatal outcomes, take action to prevent erroneous charging of vulnerable women for NHS Maternity Care and invest in reviews following the death of a baby.

Another key issue I wanted to highlight was that of bereavement care and our push as an APPG to develop a National Bereavement Care Pathway in England. The loss of a baby at any gestation is devastating for parents. Poor bereavement care, from the moment of first diagnosis and breaking of bad news, only exacerbates the profound pain felt by parents, and whilst approaches to bereavement care in the UK have greatly improved in recent years, inconsistency still remains, resulting in a postcode lottery for parents.

As of last month, all NHS Trusts in England have either expressed interest or formally committed to implementing the National Bereavement Care Pathway within their hospitals and services.

This is good progress, but if the Government made the pathway and its nine standards mandatory this would speed up implementation across all areas and lead to greater time, funding and resources being available to healthcare professionals to deliver them. Trusts require additional funding to fully implement all the standards within the NBCP, especially to ensure that every hospital has an appropriate bereavement suite, specialist staff and training.

Finally, I wanted to touch on mental health care. Grief is a natural response to this particularly isolating bereavement. Some people carry this with them for the rest of their lives but do not develop a mental health problem. However, many bereaved parents will go on to experience psychiatric illnesses such as PTSD that require specialist support, triggered by intense grief and the trauma of their experience.

In 2019 The Baby Loss Awareness Week Alliance’s report Out of Sight, Out of Mind found that 60% of bereaved parents were not able to access the psychological help they needed. Since then, it has been announced that new Maternal Mental Health Hubs in England will support mothers who have lost a baby which is very welcome.

However, we also know that fathers and partners need support, in a Sands survey 62% of men reported feeling suicidal following their experience of pregnancy or baby loss. I will be using my speech to highlight the action needed to ensure partners get the mental health support they need.

During debate I was grateful to colleagues across Parliament for their support – these are difficult conversations to have, but it is by working together to highlight these tragic issues, that we will be able to improve the experience for families in the future who go through them.

Newspaper column 16 September 2021 - the NHS and Social Care Levy

The first week back in Parliament following Summer Recess was a busy one and I was pleased to question Ministers on more support for Falmouth’s maritime industry as well as for the delivery of T-Levels by Truro and Penwith College.

The big issue from last week was around the new NHS/Social Care Levy, which will be paid for by a 1.25% rise in National Insurance Contributions, which will go directly to support the NHS.

I acknowledge that the issue of funding social care is a difficult one and one that is very important to many constituents for a variety of reasons.

With an ageing population in Cornwall that is living longer, these funds do need to be found and we all have a part to play. This issue will only become more pronounced the longer we leave it, and has not addressed by previous governments of all colours. I am pleased that our Prime Minister is grasping the nettle and starting the serious conversation about where the funds should come from. It’s worth mentioning that other parties have previously suggested this, so it is a shame that they are now deciding to play politics with it – particularly when we need it now more than ever.

The 1.25 per cent Health and Social Care Levy on earned income, hypothecated in law to health and social care will raise almost £36 billion over the next three years, with money from the levy going directly to health and social care across the whole of the country. I will of course be lobbying to ensure Cornwall gets our fair share.

Everyone has a role to play as we recover from the pandemic, just as the Government looked after everyone during the pandemic. Some will say we have gone too far, some will say we haven’t gone far enough.

For absolute clarification, this is not a tax or our lowest earners. Those who earn more, will pay more.

This was a difficult decision, it would be wrong of me to say otherwise. However, having spent more than £407 billion to support lives and livelihoods throughout the pandemic – from furlough to vaccines – difficult but responsible decisions are required to pay for it. We cannot keep running away from the problem by borrowing more. We need to face up to the challenges our country faces.

Yes I accept this breaks a manifesto commitment, which is not something I do lightly. But a global pandemic was in no-one’s manifesto. The pandemic and the consequence cost of it, could have never been predicted.

This won’t be pay awards for NHS middle management, it will go straight to the front line, and in particular help with clearing the backlog of operations that has arisen as a result of the pandemic, at a time when we need to get more out of our health and social care system than ever before.

We must now help the NHS to recover, to be able to provide much-needed care to our constituents and the people we love – and we must provide the funding to do so, in a way that is right, reasonable and fair.

As ever, if you need my assistance with anything then my team and I are here to help. Please get in touch with me by email at Cherilyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk , or by telephone on 01872 229698. I have now restarted my regular constituency advice surgeries, held in a covid-safe environment at my office, so please do get in touch should you wish to meet me about any matters that I can be of assistance with.

 

Newspaper column 9 September 2021 - Going back to Parliament and a look back on Recess

This week sees Parliament return after the Summer Recess. The rest of this year’s Parliamentary schedule promises to be a busy one as the Government continues to deal with the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and look at other long-reaching issues, such as housing and planning, the NHS and social care, the Elections Bill, the benefits system and our environment, as well as the fall out from the Afghanistan situation.

With my role on the Environmental Audit Committee in Parliament I am looking forward to continuing to work with colleagues from across Parliament to ensure that the policies and programmes of government departments and non-departmental public bodies contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance against sustainable development and environmental protection targets.

Over the past couple of weeks, during Summer Recess it was a real pleasure to take part in my first Village Surgery Tour. This is something I had always planned to do since my election as your Member of Parliament but was prevented in doing so last year by COVID-19 restrictions. Recess gives me more time in our constituency and this means I can expand from my traditional constituency advice surgery venues of Truro and Falmouth and visit some of our other wonderful communities. To this end, over the last couple of weeks I have visited Perranporth, Chacewater, St Mawes, Mylor, Probus and St Newlyn East. It was good to see so many people and talk about the issues, local and national, that matter to you. I have gone away with a lot of work on your behalf and look forward to reporting back further on some of the issues that have come up, in the future. Please do let me know if you would like me to visit your village on subsequent surgery tours and I will be delighted to come along and see you.

Finally at the weekend, it was a real honour to be part of the celebrations as the Tour of Britain passed through Truro. This was an incredibly well-organised race, both from the event organisers and also those who came out locally to see the entrants pass through our city. A special shout out must go to the Old Bakery for putting on the stage, and Jan Allen for MC'ing the bikes. It was amazing to see Truro so full of life and energy after a difficult previous 18 months and I look forward to seeing more events on Lemon Quay in the future, to go along with the imminent reopening of the Hall for Cornwall. The Tour of Britain Cornwall Stage itself was a real success and another example where Cornwall has been presented in an exceptional light for an internationally renowned event.

As ever, if you need my assistance with anything then my team and I are here to help. Please get in touch with me by email at Cherilyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk , or by telephone on 01872 229698. I have now restarted my regular constituency advice surgeries, held in a covid-safe environment at my office, so please do get in touch should you wish to meet me about any matters that I can be of assistance with.

Column 2 September 2021 - Walking for wildlife

 

Last Monday saw me successfully complete my charity Coast to Coast walk across our constituency for the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

We walked from West Portholland to Perranporth, 25.5 miles, 77,454 steps.

It was a fine day and took just over 13 hours, starting at 6am and finishing just after 7pm. We raised over £1,000 for this excellent local charity.

Along the way we passed through many different communities and spoke to local people and businesses about a wide variety of issues. It was really useful to get a snapshot of issues relevant to the area as we progressed.

We walked from Truro to Shortlanesend through Idless Woods and it was interesting to see the signage for Cornwall Council’s Quiet Lanes project, which is a trial taking place on these narrow rural lanes to discourage traffic other than for residents and deliveries. These roads certainly are currently used as rat-runs from our experience, and it will be interesting to see the results of the trial which will run for six months through the autumn, and what residents think of it.

Just outside of Shortlanesend we were welcomed by Marte and the team at Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s lovely HQ. Cornwall Wildlife Trust are beneficiaries of funding from the A30 dualling work and it was good to talk to them about their plans for this site in the future. It was also good to talk to their team about the work I do on the Environment Audit Committee in Parliament, particularly around working to improve the quality of river water - which I was able to see was of varying quality at different places throughout my walk.

After that, we were over 20 miles in and near the A30. It was good to see the work being done to dual the A30, of which the need to do so has never been more apparent, with the unprecedented busy-ness of the current summer season. Thank you to Alister and the team for guiding us through some of the works, which saved us having to go on a long diversion on a busy road that would have been really difficult.

I also visited two pubs along the way, the Heron in Malpas and the Watering Hole in Perranporth where we finished, as well as speaking to the landlord from the Plume of Feathers in Portscatho, who we saw near Truro enjoying a well earned day off! What was really apparent across all three businesses and indeed is reflected in correspondence and conversations I have every day at the moment is just how busy our hospitality sector is at the moment, and the herculean efforts those who work in this sector are putting in to ensure those visiting have the best possible experience.

All in all, it was a challenging day but an excellent experience and it was good to see so many people and places over the course of the walk, while raising money for an excellent local charity. A Member of Parliament is always supported by their team and I must also give credit to Jordan for joining me on the walk and James for organising it and completing the whole route with me. Thanks also to Toni for getting us to the start early this morning, and Susan, Barnaby and Reuben for joining us for part of the route.

As ever, if you need my assistance with anything then my team and I are here to help. Please get in touch with me by email at Cherilyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk , or by telephone on 01872 229698. I have now restarted my regular constituency advice surgeries, held in a covid-safe environment at my office, so please do get in touch should you wish to meet me about any matters that I can be of assistance with.