Our latest featured chart takes a closer look at the insights on our data hub around stillbirth rates across the UK …

Our fourth featured chart takes a closer look at the insights on our data hub around PMRT data …

Data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week emphasises the urgent need for system-level changes in England and Wales to save more babies’ lives and tackle inequalities in pregnancy and baby loss …

In April, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published a refreshed Women’s Health Strategy which contained commitments to listen to women*, tackle inequalities in health outcomes and improve performance in services that matter most to women, including enhancing miscarriage support. While individual commitments are welcome, the investigation and taskforce must consider how they are embedded in system-level changes.   …

Our third featured chart takes a closer look at the insights on our data hub around miscarriage estimates …

The interim report, published by the Independent Investigation into Maternity and Neonatal Services in England, highlights systemic issues facing services. While this systemic focus is welcome, the final report must be solution-focused, including defining what ‘safe care’ looks like and how this can be delivered …

We’re pleased to announce that Georgia Stevenson has been appointed as Head of the Sands & Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit …

Our second featured chart takes a closer look at the insights on our data hub around preterm births …

The first featured chart in this series looks at what is happening with midwife numbers in England …

While there is widespread agreement on the need for change to improve the safety of maternity and neonatal services. It is not clear that there is agreement on what that change looks like. 
In the recent announcement of an investigation into maternity and neonatal services in England, there was recognition that reviews and reports into the safety of maternity services over the past decade or more haven’t led to the improvement needed. This is despite different reviews consistently identifying similar themes, …

“Too many women, babies and families are being let down”.  These are the words of the Independent investigation of the NHS in England, published by Lord Darzi in September 2024. But they could have been written at any point in the last decade or more. Back in 2016 the Department of Health’s Safer Maternity Care action plan declared that  “now is the time for all those caring for and supporting new and expectant mothers and their babies to come together …

Read the Joint Policy Unit’s response to new data on perinatal mortality published by MBRRACE UK “Today’s report from MBRRACE-UK shows the gap continues to grow between neonatal death rates in the most deprived areas and those in the least deprived areas of the UK. Put starkly, newborn babies are dying because of poverty and deprivation.  
The stillbirth rate among babies of Asian ethnicity has risen sharply, and Black babies are still twice as likely as White babies to …

The Joint Policy Unit has responded to the Change NHS consultation, which will inform a new 10 year plan for the NHS in England …

We are undertaking work to identify what is needed to make progress on key themes from previous reports and reviews into the safety of maternity and neonatal services …

Research by the Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit has found concerning levels of variation across the advice for women and birthing people given by NHS trusts in England on contacting maternity triage in early labour – highlighting the need for consistent guidance around contacting triage, as well as clear information about the care people are entitled to …

The single word title of the Labour manifesto was ‘change’. There are few areas where transformative change is more needed than in maternity and neonatal services …