Perinatal Mortality
(asked on 10th November 2015) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will undertake a review of the causes of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the UK so as to better understand how maternity practice can be improved.
On 13 November 2015, the Government announced an ambitious campaign to halve the national rates of maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths and brain injuries in babies by 2030. To help meet these aims trusts will receive a share of over £4 million of government investment to improve outcomes for women and babies. This includes a £500,000 investment in developing a new system for staff to review and learn from every stillbirth and neonatal death.
National surveillance of perinatal mortality, including stillbirth and neonatal deaths, is undertaken through the Government funded Maternal, Newborn and Infant Clinical Outcome Review Programme, which is delivered by MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies - Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK).
As part of the programme, MBRRACE-UK publish an annual perinatal mortality surveillance report, which identifies risk factors, causes and trends, and makes recommendations on how stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates can be reduced. A copy of MBRRACE-UK’s latest perinatal mortality surveillance report can be found at the link below:
MBRRACE-UK also undertakes a rolling programme of topic specific confidential enquiries. These include a confidential enquiry into antepartum stillbirth in term normally formed infants, which is due to be published on 19 November 2015, and a confidential enquiry into intrapartum stillbirths and intrapartum related neonatal deaths, which is due to report in 2017.