Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to ensure dedicated miscarriage facilities are available within maternity ward settings to support miscarriage trauma and grief.

NHS England’s guidance on the configuration of the estate in maternity services states that a woman who has lost her baby should not be accommodated on a ward or bedroom where there are new mothers. The guidance, Children, young people and maternity services. Health Building Note 09-02: Maternity care facilities’ is available at the follow:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HBN_09-02_Final.pdf

We have funded SANDS to work with other baby loss charities and the Royal Colleges to produce and support a National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) to reduce the variation in the quality of bereavement care provided by the National Health Service. The NBCP standards ensure that families can access dedicated miscarriage facilities. As of 1 April 2022, 78% of NHS trusts in England have committed to adopting the nine NBCP standards.