The National Bereavement Care Pathway

Evaluating care given to parents suffering pregnancy and baby loss

Fiveways has recently completed an evaluation of the first wave of the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) pilot project. The NBCP aims to improve the bereavement care parents receive after pregnancy or baby loss, by helping health professionals to sensitively support families. The project is co-ordinated by Sands and the project board contains 13 different organisations, including charities, professional bodies (including NHS England and several Royal Colleges), and other research partners.

Our mixed method evaluation gathered insight from over 530 health professionals and 56 bereaved parents. Our evaluation report for the first 11 pilot sites can be read here

It was incredibly motivating to hear the statistics and feedback generated by our evaluation being used by MPs in a Westminster parliamentary debate to call for action to improve care UK-wide“ If Members leave this debate with one thing in their minds, let it be the testimony of a grieving parent who experienced the pathway: “I was shocked at the level of care. I thought ‘this is the NHS, why are they making such an effort for me?’ I didn’t know care like this existed and I was blown away by it—my expectations were exceeded in every way”.​ – Will Quince MP referring to our evaluation in parliament.

We were also delighted to be retained to evaluate the second wave of the pilot involving 21 new NHS trusts.

“Fiveways delivered what we wanted and more. It’s been a good experience and we are really pleased with our selection– the team has been available, approachable, solution-focused and knowledgeable. We’ve been quietly impressed and have enjoyed working with Fiveways.” Marc Harder, National Bereavement Care Pathway Lead