Agenda item

To receive and discuss Tackling Infant Mortality in Oldham Public Health Annual Report 2022.

The Scrutiny Board received the Director of Public Health’s Annual Report on Infant Mortality in Oldham 2022. The report was an independent view on this highly sensitive matter that was related to health and wellbeing in Oldham and examined what could be done to decrease the mortality rates.

The submitted report had been prepared by the Council’s previous Director of Public Health, Ms Katrina Stephens, and it focused on Infant Mortality and what can be done to decrease the rates in Oldham. The report covered the period from April 2022 to March 2023.

The report had been produced in collaboration with the Council’s relevant colleagues and partners, and it shared experiences of some of the Borough’s residents. It also detailed the most up to date data regarding Infant Mortality in Oldham.

Infant mortality was a recognised indicator of the overall health of a population. Infant mortality had, overall, decreased across England over the past twenty years. Oldham though, had had a higher rate than other areas for many years. Rates of infant mortality could therefore be seen as a major indicator of a borough’s health. Oldham’s infant mortality rate was higher than the Northwest and England rates. Oldham’s most recent rate for 2019 - 2021 was 7.2 per 1,000, making it significantly higher than the national figure of 3.9 per 1,000.

Oldham’s rates of infant mortality had been higher than the regional and national rates for at least the past 20 years. However, over the last few years, Oldham had not seen a reduction in the infant mortality rate, and, in fact, the rate was increasing.

Over the past year, the Council’s Public Health staff had reviewed the local data, the national evidence base and worked with colleagues across Oldham, including the voice of residents. This had led to the creation of the Oldham Tackling Infant Mortality Group and to the agreement of eight priorities, listed below:

1.    Promoting Smoke-free Pregnancies

2.    Reduce the Number of Sudden and Unexpected Deaths of Infants in Oldham (SUDI)

3. Improve Breastfeeding Rates

4. Improve Access to Excellent Maternity Care

5. Reduce Deaths and Severe Disability Related to Consanguinity/Recessive

Autosomal Conditions

6. Support Women to be a Healthy Weight in Pregnancy

7. Supporting Young Parents

8. A Focus on Poverty/Cost of Living The rest of this report will provide detail on each of these priorities and the current work that is happening in Oldham

The report went on to detail six recommendations that were designed to address Oldham’s current situation in relation to Infant Mortality.

a.    That the Council and partners should continue to take steps to improve the cultural competence of maternity services by ensuring the impact of parents’ culture, ethnicity and language is discussed and considered during the antenatal risk assessment process, initial assessment and follow-up.

b.    That professionals who work with families and pregnant women including GPs, midwives, maternity support workers, and neonatal staff, should undertake training on consanguinity and genetic conditions, for example the e-learning for health (eLfH) Close Relative Marriage module.

c.    That the Council and partners should work together to agree and roll out an Oldham approach to delivering personalised safe sleep messages for parents across the borough. This should be led by maternity and health visiting but include wider training for all staff across the wider children’s workforce to understand the risks of SUDI.

d.    As a borough, the Council and its partners, should commit to mitigating the impacts of poverty on the risks for infant mortality and make this a priority for the Health and Wellbeing Board and the wider Oldham system. This should include considering funding for safe places for babies to sleep and ensuring that housing for families with infants recognises that they need to sleep in a cot.

e.    Oldham should become fully accredited by UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative and work towards the Gold award – this would support Oldham to continue to be breastfeeding friendly over the coming years.

f.     The aim for Oldham should be for all pregnancies to be smoke-free. The Oldham Tobacco Alliance should work closely with maternity, ROMVP and leaders across the borough to develop approaches to further reduce smoking in pregnancy.

The Council’s Public Health service, together with appropriate partners and the Tackling Infant Mortality Group were using these recommendations as a basis for action planning and development of appropriate work to address the priorities and to ultimately fulfil the recommendations.  

The Chair, Councillor Moores, advised that he was due to be elected as the Borough’s Mayor, for 2024/25 at the Council’s Annual Meeting in May 2024. The Chair undertook to use the influence that the office of Mayor affords, to promote, at all opportunities anti-smoking initiatives, to highlight the serious harm that smoking causes to pregnant women and their unborn children and to promote the creation of more smoke-free areas in the Borough.

Resolved:

1.    That the recommendations detailed in the submitted report be supported and endorsed.

2.    That the Chair’s undertakings, during his ‘Mayoral year’ in 2024/25, to promote Oldham borough-wide anti-smoking measures and the creation of more smoke-free areas be noted and supported.