Anne Milton MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Department of Health
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2NS

24 October 2011

Dear Anne,

I am writing to you after hearing from a constituent who has recently suffered the terrible tragedy of a stillbirth. As a campaigner for the stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands, she provided me with some information and statistics on stillbirth and baby deaths, and it is clear that more could be done to prevent such deaths.

It was particularly dismaying to read that the UK has one of the worst rates of stillbirths in the developed world - we are second from the bottom of a list of 35 similar high-income nations, according to The Lancet. I am sure you will agree that this unacceptable. Much more must be done to save lives and save families from the terrible, indelible trauma of often avoidable premature deaths.

Sands has identified a number of areas where improvements could be made, including better training, resourcing and antenatal screening for maternity services, and ‘vastly improved accountability and lesson-learning' in maternity units where stillbirths and baby deaths do occur.

On behalf of my constituent, I would be grateful to know more about what how the Government plans to cut the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the UK.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas, MP, Brighton Pavilion