iHV supports report from Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit

As a member of the Baby Loss Awareness Alliance, iHV supports the report published today by the Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit which makes clear that too many families continue to suffer the heartbreak of losing a baby.

The Saving Babies’ Lives Progress Report pulls 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. At the heart of the Saving Babies’ Lives report are the voices of bereaved parents and other family members.

Overall, the report paints a concerning picture with progress stalling and a risk of going backwards.

In England, the Government’s target to halve the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths by 2025 compared to 2010 levels is not on track, and there is no current target or ambition for reducing baby deaths in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The report also highlights that despite Government commitments to act on the findings of recent reviews of maternity services, this still hasn’t led to the fundamental change needed to save more babies’ lives.

The iHV joins with others in calling for pregnancy loss and baby death to be high on the political agendas of all parties and to be treated as the urgent priorities that they are.

Go to Saving Babies Lives Report Infographic

Read the full report

Read the summary report

New e-learning programme on caring for people bereaved through pregnancy loss and baby death

iHV is proud to be a partner collaborating on this important national work – National Bereavement Care Pathway: Supporting Parents for Pregnancy and Neonatal Loss.

This month sees the launch of the e-learning modules on the e-Learning for Healthcare platform. The training programme has been written to share the elements of good bereavement care. Please take time to review these modules and to share their existence with everyone you work in your teams, GP practices, Children’s Centres and communities.

The first two sessions of the new National Bereavement Care Pathway: Supporting Parents for Pregnancy and Neonatal Loss e-learning programme are now available. The training programme has been written to share the elements of good bereavement care. It is being delivered by e-LfH’s team in partnership with Sands and a collaboration of other charities, professional organisations and people, including iHV, with first-hand experience of bereavement.

The programme will consist of six sessions and is divided into two courses:

Bereavement Care after Pregnancy Loss or Baby Death – Learning for All

These training sessions have been designed to provide support when talking to bereaved individuals. They offer suggestions and guidance about what to say and do and are suitable for anyone who might come into contact, in their work or home life, with a person bereaved through pregnancy loss or baby death.

Bereavement Care after Pregnancy Loss or Baby Death – Healthcare Professionals

This course is for healthcare professionals caring for newly bereaved individuals. Working through the themes of the National Bereavement Care Pathway, the course helps healthcare professionals understand the important elements of excellent bereavement care; it covers delivering bad news, memory making, post mortem and histology, ceremonies and services, discharge, aftercare, feedback and review.

You can access the e-learning on e-LfH here

Image credit: People photo created by yanalya – www.freepik.com

National Bereavement Care Pathway – now fully launched!

The quality of care that bereaved families receive when their baby dies can have long-lasting effects. Good seamless care between services can help support parents through this time; conversely poor care can make the situation much harder for families.

iHV was proud to work alongside key partner charities and professional bodies on this project, which has been supported by the Department of Health and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss, and led by SANDS. Antoinette Sandbach MP highlighted the outcome of evaluation of an extended two phase pilot at Prime Minister’s Questions and, in response, Theresa May has urged all Trusts to adopt the pathway work into practice.

For more information: https://nbcpathway.org.uk

There are pathways covering 5 areas of loss to underpin high quality, individualised and sensitive care for:

Miscarriage
Termination of Pregnancy for Foetal Anomaly
Stillbirth
Neonatal Death
Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy – up to 12 months

Actions for health visitors:

Review the pathways and consider the health visiting contribution to supporting families with pregnancy or baby loss
Share the pathways with your Professional Lead and ask how your organisation will be taking the pathways forward in practice – direct them to: https://nbcpathway.org.uk/professionals
Connect with your Community Midwives and ensure they are aware of the pathways too
Find out more about which local maternity hospitals are adopters of the pathway via your local Maternity Voices or Maternity Transformation meetings in your region

The NBC pathway has been shown to help strengthen support to the bereaved families in pilot areas. There is now a rallying call and all health visiting services, like their maternity services partners, must be aware of and adopt these standards for the benefit of families in their care.

Go to NBCP website for professionals

Read our previous news story on NBCP

National Bereavement Care Pathway helps improve care received by parents

A project to improve the quality of care that bereaved families receive when their baby dies has been found to be making a big difference, and should be rolled out nationally, a new study has found.

To ensure bereaved parents and their families are supported in the best way possible, the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) was launched in 2017 and has been piloted in 32 NHS Trusts in England. The NBCP helps professionals to provide families with a greater consistency and quality of bereavement care after pregnancy or baby loss.

Independent research previously highlighted improvements made in the 11 Wave one sites when it reported its findings in October 2018. The final report relating to 21 Wave two sites published May 2019 analyses the experiences of bereavement care from parents and healthcare professionals.

The results have revealed high levels of satisfaction with the bereavement care they received when their baby died. Parents also said the hospital was a caring and supportive environment, they were treated with respect and many feel the decisions they made in the hospital were the right ones at the time.

Download NBCP Wave two report (May 2019)

Collaborators in the project, including the Institute of health Visiting, are calling on NHS Trusts to adopt the National Bereavement Care Pathway and adhere to nine specific bereavement care standards.

Since the Pathway was introduced, more health care professionals feel they now have consistent and clear guidelines which support them to provide good quality care for bereaved parents. The Pathway has improved the dialogue between hospital departments which has helped professionals to deliver care more consistently.

NHS Trusts are being encouraged to take up the NBCP as part of the collaboration’s roll out plans. A number have already taken part in local workshops to identify gaps in local practice and to develop plans to improve bereavement care, based on the 9 bereavement care standards promoted by the group.

Further information regarding these standards, how to register with the pathway and other details can be found at www.nbcpathway.org.uk

The National Bereavement Care Pathway is being led by: Sands (Stillbirth and neonatal death charity), Bliss, The Lullaby Trust, The Miscarriage Association, ARC (Antenatal Results & Choices), Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of General Practitioners, Neonatal Nurses Association, Institute of Health Visiting, NHS England.

National Bereavement Care Pathway for pregnancy and baby loss

The Institute is pleased to be one of the key partners in the project group working to deliver a National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) for England, with the support of Department of Health and All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Baby Loss.

This invaluable project, led by SANDS, includes partners from professional bodies, charities, parents and families with the aim of ensuring that all bereaved parents are offered equal, high quality, individualised, safe and sensitive care following pregnancy and baby loss (up to 1 year of age).

Pilot sites for the roll-out of the pathway and guidance materials were launched on 9 October (to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness Week) and will be independently evaluated, with the second wave of the pilot planned for April 2018.

We are really keen to support the project group with identification of community health providers (which employ health visitors) that are willing to be included in the second pilot phase – to ensure that the pathway offers clear, consistent guidance to health visitors to enable them to work confidently alongside parents, providing compassionate and parent-centred care to those affected through use of the pathway.

If you would like to know more about becoming a pilot site please contact Project Lead Marc Harder ([email protected]).

Look out for further news about the NBCP or tweets with hashtag #nbcp.

Read Marc's latest blog

National Bereavement Care Pathway Project

Pilot sites for the roll out of the pathway and guidance materials are being launched on 9 October (to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness Week) and will be independently evaluated, with the second wave of the pilot planned for April 2018.

If you would like to know more about becoming a pilot site please contact Project Lead Marc Harder ([email protected]).

Look out for further news about the NBCP or tweets with hashtag #nbcp.

See Marc’s latest blog