The Pregnancy Loss Review and Government response have been published, highlighting improvements needed to ensure anyone experiencing pregnancy loss gets the care and support they need.
We welcome the Pregnancy Loss Review report that has been published today. The report highlights several areas where improvements must be made to ensure anyone experiencing pregnancy loss before 24 weeks gets the care and support they need. This includes better counting and reporting of miscarriages so the full picture of pregnancy loss across the UK can be understood, access to high quality bereavement care for parents, and bereavement care training for healthcare professionals.
Also published today is the UK Government response to the review which details what actions the government and the NHS will take to deliver the recommendations of the report. Sands will be considering the details of both the report and the government response, so we can work collaboratively with the government and the NHS, to help achieve better care for everyone experiencing pregnancy loss.
We are pleased that the government response does include the need for a review of the provision of bereavement care facilities across the UK, an area that Sands is actively working on.
“We welcome the Government response to the Pregnancy Loss Review, which includes the commitment to a review of the provision of bereavement care. There is an urgent need for investment in bereavement care facilities and training for healthcare professionals. We ask that any survey or review of provision is started immediately, so the staff who need access to resources and training to enable them to provide better bereavement care for parents receive it as quickly as possible.
“Sands has already been collecting data on the availability of these services, following limited progress made by the government since the launch, over a year ago, of the Women’s Health Strategy which also recognised the need for improvements to be made in this area.
“We will continue to share our findings and work to support the government and the NHS. We urge that investment in services is made in line with the National Bereavement Care Pathway standards, which provide guidance on the provision of excellent care in this area.”
Dr Clea Harmer, Chief Executive at Sands.
The Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit is focused on achieving policy change so that fewer babies die, and inequalities in baby loss eliminated. Earlier this year the Joint Policy Unit released the Saving Babies’ Lives Progress Report - pulling together data from different sources for the first time to give everyone a shared understanding of the burden of pregnancy and baby loss across the UK. The report highlighted the need for meaningful action on many of the areas raised in the Pregnancy Loss Review released today.
"The Pregnancy Loss Review highlights a number of areas for improvement, to ensure anyone experiencing pregnancy loss before 24 weeks gets the care and support they need.
"We highlighted in our own recent progress report that the lack of systematic counting and reporting of miscarriages conceals the full picture of pregnancy loss across the UK. The Scottish Government has already made specific commitments on this, and we want to see the UK Government and NHS working to follow their lead as a matter of urgency.
"Technical challenges in recording pre-24-week losses must not be an excuse for inaction by the government. Without a robust mechanism for recording miscarriages, we cannot fully understand the scale of the problem, set ambitions for reducing rates, or know the impact of preventative interventions.
"As an immediate first step, there is a role for the NHS to standardise and bring together existing records of miscarriage from across the key healthcare settings where pregnant women present. This should include losses before 12-weeks where women are in contact with health services.”
Rob Wilson, Head of the Sands and Tommy’s Policy Unit
Support for you
We understand that announcements like this can be incredibly difficult, and we are always here to support anyone affected. If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support after loss, find out all the different ways we offer support.