While the UK's maternity care is largely safe the spotlight on poor care has been growing in recently years. From Morecambe Bay to East Kent, the voices of parents have been key in highlighting areas where tragedies might have been avoided.
Organisations such as MBRRACE-UK and the National Child Mortality Database, of which Sands is a member, count and review baby deaths to understand how lives might be saved with better care. The Perinatal Mortality Review Tool annual reports help us understand whether hospitals are getting better at identifying poor care where it happens.
Organisations such as MBRRACE-UK and the National Child Mortality Database, of which Sands is a member, count and review baby deaths to understand how lives might be saved with better care. The Perinatal Mortality Review Tool annual reports help us understand whether hospitals are getting better at identifying poor care where it happens.
Reading the Signals report - East Kent
The 2022 'Reading the signals: Maternity and neonatal services in East Kent' report found a pattern of poor clinical care for women and their babies, and a failure to listen to families in the East Kent Trust which led to harm.
The Ockenden Review - Shrewsbury and Telford
The 2017 report following the Independent Review of Maternity Services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was led by Donna Ockenden, now running the investigation into Nottingham. This report made recommendations around key aspects of improving maternity safety after avoidable deaths and incidents of harm to families.
The Morecambe Bay Investigation
The 2015 report summarising findings of the Morecambe Bay Investigation which reviewed the maternity and neonatal services of the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust.
MBRRACE-UK reports and enquiries
MBRRACE-UK is a national collaboration of researchers, policy makes, clinicians and parent organisations such as Sands which is responsible for collecting all the information on babies who died every year. Their confidential enquiries help to identify which baby deaths might be avoided and what aspects of care need to improve.
Perinatal Mortality Review Tool annual reports
The PMRT is the national system for reviewing every baby death. Their annual reports summarise the quality of reviews across the UK, with information around how involved parents are in reviews, whether poor care is successfully identified and actions implemented to prevent future deaths.
National Child Mortality Database report
The NCMD looks at information around child deaths in England, and this report looks specifically at the contribution of perinatal events to the deaths of children under 10 years old. Around two thirds of child deaths occr as a result of something that happened during pregnancy, birth or in the early hours and weeks of life.
Find out more about Sands' parent surveys and reports