Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has taken steps to develop quality standards and national guidance to support people planning, funding and delivering specialist psychological support services for bereaved parents.

The national bereavement care pathway for pregnancy and baby loss was launched in 2017 and seeks to increase the quality of, and reduce the inequity in, the bereavement care provided by healthcare professionals after the loss of a baby or pregnancy at any gestation based on nine bereavement care standards which can be accessed at the following link:

https://nbcpathway.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-05/Bereavement%20Care%20Standards.pdf

A key element of this is the requirement for a key worker who acts as a single point of contact for the bereaved family, who they can turn to for information on the child death review process, and who can signpost them to sources of support such as specialist psychological support.

In December 2018, NHS England published ‘When a child dies - a guide for parents and carers to support parents through the child death review process’ and help them understand the support that is available.