Examination of Witnesses (Questions 112
- 119)
TUESDAY 24 JUNE 2003
DR STEPHEN
LADYMAN MP, LINDSAY
WILKINSON, CATHERINE
MCCORMICK
AND DAVID
AMOS
Ms McCormick: I am Catherine McCormick,
Lead Midwife Advisor to the Department of Health.
Ms Wilkinson: I am Lindsay Wilkinson,
the Team Leader for Women's Health Maternity Services for the
Department of Health.
Mr Amos: I am David Amos, Deputy
Human Resources Director for the NHS.
Julia Drown: Thanks for coming. We are
obviously going to try and cover as much as we can and we are
going to start off with data issues. Richard?
Q112 Dr Taylor: Thank you. I think
we all realise the tall order you have taken on in this short
time. One of the first things that struck us in our first Maternity
Inquiry was the absolute chaos in the collection of maternity
statistics and the fact that we found places where they did not
have computers, places where they could put the data in and could
not get it out. I think really this is more a question to raise
your awareness of this. Have you had a chance yet to look into
any of the matters related to data and data collection?
Dr Ladyman: I have not. It is
an issue that particularly interests me because, as you may know,
before I became an MP I was a manager of an IT department in a
pharmaceutical company. I can only say that if I had ever built
the sort of systems that people could put information in and not
get it out again, they would probably have invited me to stand
for election as an MP a lot earlier. So I was intrigued by the
comments that were made in your report and it is certainly something
I will be discussing, particularly with Lord Warner who is going
to have responsibility for IT matters in the Department. So I
cannot give you any direct answer, but it is certainly something
I will be looking at. I do not know whether any of the officials
have got any specific points that they want to make on it?
Ms Wilkinson: I suppose there
are two things that spring to mind. One is that actually as part
of the NSF, which you have already mentioned, the Children's NSF,
there is an information strategy which is underpinning that and
so we are looking at quite a lot of the issues around data. There
is an awful lot of effort being put into HES data as well. So
the aim is that by the end of the financial year to have got the
coverage in NHS hospitals up to over 90%. So there is quite a
lot of activity, but obviously it is something that could be improved.
Q113 Dr Taylor: Is there any link
between the maternity hospital episode statistics and the information
strategy in the Children's NSF?
Ms Wilkinson: Yes.
Q114 Dr Taylor: There is?
Ms Wilkinson: Yes.
Q115 Dr Taylor: Can you go into a
bit more detail? Can you tell us how they are linked together?
Ms Wilkinson: The information
strategy is being led by working within the NSF team but it is
being led by the NHS Information Authority. The HES data is collected
by the statisticians and I certainly know that they have a meeting
planned in the summer to start to look at how these two bits need
to come together. But the NSF team, of which I am team leader,
work closely with the statisticians and the Information Authority.
Q116 Dr Taylor: Could we ask you
to keep an eye on that and make sure that that actually does happen?
Dr Ladyman: It is certainly something
that we will be taking a very close interest in.
Q117 Dr Taylor: The other thing we
have been interested in is the Scottish model because it is simple,
it is straightforward and a lot of the people who have given evidence
to us have rather supported it. Could that be considered for England?
Dr Ladyman: I take the view that
we should learn from all forms of experience and all places; so
absolutely, if there is good practice in Scotland then we will
be looking at it very closely.
Q118 Julia Drown: I am going to start
on issues on lead carers which is an issue that John, I know,
wanted to pick up on. The previous Committee inquiry about 10
years ago into maternity services, Audrey Wise then spoke of women
centred maternity services and talked about staffing the women
rather than staffing the ward or the labour ward or the delivery
suite or whatever. Do you think or have you picked up—it
might be an issue just as much for your officials as yourself—do
you think attitudes of health professionals towards women have
changed over that time?
Ms McCormick: Yes, I think absolutely.
I think health care professionals—I think Baroness Cumberlege
highlighted the huge changes in attitudes and philosophy around
maternity care and I think there is no doubt that health care
professionals now understand that women and their partners are
very much more informed and listen much more and work much more
closely. I think I would also say it is not just midwives, I think
it is the whole team and I think the team approach to care really
cannot be emphasised strongly enough.
Q119 Julia Drown: And what about
how receptive people are to women's choices? Again, do you think
they are more receptive?
Ms McCormick: I think yes, they
are. I think, as I say, health professionals providing maternity
care now have a very good understanding about women being much
more informed, certain groups of women anyway are much more informed
about what they would wish to choose related to their pregnancy
and childbirth experience. So I think their response matches the
demand.
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