Fall in stillbirth rates at Rotherham NHS trust

New guidance – called Saving Babies’ Lives Care Bundle – was introduced in a bid to halve the national rate of still births from 4.7 per thousand to 2.3 per thousand by 2030, potentially avoiding the tragedy of still birth for more than 1,500 families every year.

In England, around 1 in 250 births is a stillbirth.

Sarah Petty, head of midwifery and nursing at the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust told a meeting of Rotherham Council’s health select commission on February 25 that the guidelines “were implemented to reduce preventable stillbirths and early neonatal deaths”.

“That was around smoking, advice, management of women with reduced foetal movements, [and] the management of women with babies with small gestational age.

“Rotherham District General are fully compliant with that.

“Nationally, that has already driven stillbirth rates down.

“The current stillbirth rate at Rotherham is 3.52, so is has been recognised that we had a higher stillbirth rate.

“Our stillbirth rate was around 4.6 in 2019, it reduced to 4.1, and we’re now at 3.5 – we have done a lot of work to do that.

“That is linked to deprivation.”

Ms Petty added that in December 2020, the first report into maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust had been released, which had made “sad reading.”

“We had a number of immediate and essential actions that we needed to work towards and implement, and 12 urgent priorities that needed to be implemented within weeks to assure NHS England that maternity services were safe.”

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article, please contact:

Sands

Tommy’s

Child Bereavement UK