Sands is pleased to share that as part of the National Bereavement Care Pathway in England, we have updated the 9 bereavement care standards for NHS England trusts.
Through introducing the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) across the UK, Sands seeks to improve the quality and consistency of bereavement care received by parents from the NHS after pregnancy or baby loss. The NBCP provides healthcare professionals with frameworks, tools and educational resources to support excellent care. The refresh of the standards has been made possible thanks to the contributions of our partner organisations on the NBCP in England.
We are grateful for the responses received as part of our consultation earlier this year. Many healthcare professionals commented that the nine standards, which were last updated in 2019, only needed tweaks rather than a major overhaul. As a result, the main change is that ‘informed choices’ and ‘parent-led bereavement plan’ have been incorporated into one standard, enabling a new standard relating to review processes and parent engagement in reviews to be included.
We have taken the opportunity to re-group the standards into three sets of three: parent-focused, communication and learning, and staffing. As a result, the nine standards as are follows:
Parent-focused
- All bereaved parents and families are provided with personalised care.
- All bereaved parents and families have the opportunity to use an appropriate, available and accessible bereavement room.
- All bereaved parents and families are offered opportunities to make memories.
Communication and learning
- All bereaved parents and families are informed about and, where needed, referred for emotional support and for specialist psychological support.
- A system is in place to clearly signal to all health care professionals and staff that a parent has experienced a bereavement.
- Bereaved parents and families are confident that learning from their baby’s death will take place and are fully informed throughout.
Staffing
- Bereaved parents and families receive their care from an appropriately staffed team.
- All staff involved in the care of bereaved parents and families receive the training and resources they need to provide high-quality bereavement care.
- Healthcare staff are effectively supported to care for bereaved parents and families.
Accompanying materials, including an updated self-assessment document, slide pack and graphics will be updated and released in due course. Watch this space for further details.
Thank you to all those who have contributed to the consultation process over the past few months. We met with around 300 healthcare professionals at our learning workshops earlier in the year and were overwhelmed by the positivity about the existing NBCP standards and materials.
It was clear that, rather than a major overhaul, some adaptations needed to be made, with a focus on ensuring the learning from pregnancy loss and baby death is taken on board. This helps underline the importance of reviews as part of the bereavement care journey, and reiterates the fundamental link between high quality bereavement care and maternity safety.
Marc Harder, Head of Bereavement Care and Hospital Liaison at Sands
Sands has also released the next two modules in the NBCP England toolkit. These two modules provide guidance around supporting diverse families and providing bereavement care in the community. They have been developed in collaboration with colleagues at North West Ambulance Trust and East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, and would not have been possible without their contributions.
For further information about these resources and the NBCP in England and across the UK, please contact bereavementcare@sands.org.uk