We have been proactively lobbying the Government since the launch of Saving Babies’ Lives report in 2009, meeting with Health Ministers, the Health Select Committee and key Members of Parliament, calling for the development of a national strategy to reduce the loss of babies’ lives.

In 2012, following the launch of our Preventing Babies’ Deaths: what needs to be done report we were delighted that the Department of Health co-hosted with Sands the first-ever national workshop in England to focus on stillbirth prevention. The workshop brought together a select group of key experts and professional bodies to discuss the wide-range of issues raised in our report.

From this workshop, five small expert ‘task and finish’ working groups were formed to tackle individual issues relating to the reduction of perinatal mortality. These include:

• A group, led by Sands, will identify standards that enable robust perinatal review of deaths, dissemination of learning and audit of change.
• A group, led by the Department of Health, will identify the key dataset indicators that ought to be collected in order to improve detection of risk of stillbirth.
• A group, led by Sands, will identify key public health messages that all those delivering public health will need to be aware of in order to reduce the risk of stillbirth.
• A group, led by the Department of Health, will develop and agree the information/tools that Clinical Commissioning Groups will need to build stillbirth prevention into the commissioning of maternity services.
• A group collaborative of the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, will develop combined guidance to ensure that stillbirth risk, including fetal movement and prolonged pregnancy, is more prominently featured in midwifery and obstetric training curricula.

The expert groups have set specific objectives, meet regularly to measure progress against these objectives.

In addition to the expert groups, we continue to input into relevant stakeholder consultations and government committee reports, to increase the profile of stillbirth issues and to ensure that the parent voice is heard and considered.