Health visitor funding and better childcare needed to support new parents, say MPs
Joe Lepper
Thursday, October 7, 2021
MPs have called for a strengthening of support for those that became parents during the Covid-19 pandemic.
They want extra funding for councils to see ensure new parents receive a visit from a heath visitor before the end of the year.
More affordable childcare is also needed for those with young children, according to MPs.
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In addition, they want to see the government commission a review into childcare funding to “ensure childcare provision meets the needs of new parents seeking to return to work”.
They also want ministers to devise a dedicated recovery strategy for new parents to ensure support is reaching them.
The recommendations have been made in a new report by members of the House of Commons petitions committee on the impact of the health crisis on new parents.
This report takes into account evidence from campaigners and experts, collected during the summer this year.
It is also based on a survey of 8,700 new parents and childcare providers. This found that more than three quarters of new parents said cost had prevented them accessing childcare.
Some 93 per cent of new parents said they had been unable to access baby and toddler groups over the previous 12 months.
MPs are particularly concerned by a lack of health visitor support available to new parents amid the pandemic and the move to online support.
While welcoming online help from health visitors as a “necessary and useful innovation during the pandemic” MPs are concerned that it is less effective “at offering high quality support”.
Online support “should not generally be seen as a desirable long-term replacement for face-to-face provision”, they add.
New parents and babies need a dedicated covid-19 recovery strategy 👶
— Petitions Committee (@HoCpetitions) October 7, 2021
Today we publish our report on the impact of covid-19 on new parents, one year on from our previous report on this issue.
Read the report: https://t.co/4ANPnXY7Ek#MaternityPetition#ChildcareDebate pic.twitter.com/NwgjrwLjcQ
This is the second report by the committee on post pandemic support for new parents.
Its first report was published last year and followed an e-petition to parliament, signed by 238,884 people, calling for an extension of maternity leave by three months with pay in light of Covid-19.
This earlier report found that “the impact of the pandemic on new parents and their children has so far not been given as much attention as it should have been”.
However, the committee’s call for urgent action to address the pandemic’s impact on new parents was rejected by government.
The government said that “for the vast majority of parents, the current arrangements have been sufficiently generous to cater for the variety of circumstances that new parents have found themselves in as a result of the pandemic”.
Other recommendations made in the committee’s latest report are for additional funding and resources to ramp up access to mental health support for new parents.
In addition, employers’ health and safety obligations to pregnant women need to be reviewed, say MPs.
Also, government should legislate to improve redundancy protection for new and expectant mothers.
“It is extremely concerning that over a year after the publication of the committee’s first report on this subject, there has been little or no progress,” said committee chair Catherine McKinnell, Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North.
She added: “We have continued to receive petitions highlighting the difficulties new parents, and the services they rely on during the vital early months of their child’s life, have continued to face over the last year. It is clear that the impact of the pandemic is still being felt.”