This is the fourth edition of our “featured chart”, where we take a closer look at some of the insights on our  data hub. The Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT) released their seventh annual report in December, summarising findings from reviews of stillbirths and neonatal deaths conducted in the past year.  

The PMRT reported a marked rise in the proportion of neonatal death reviews which found that issues with care may or were likely to have affected the outcome (graded C/D) in the UK*. Put simply, an increasing proportion of neonatal deaths may have been prevented with improved care. 

In 2024, nearly one in four reviews found issues with care which may have contributed to neonatal deaths. This proportion has increased more than 2.5-fold since 2018, with a particularly sharp increase over the past year.  

 

 

While is not possible to determine whether the increase of C/D review gradings are due to increasing quality of reviews, including increasing the number of external examiners in reviews, or a worsening of care, this upward trend highlights the need for better care within maternity and neonatal services to prevent avoidable deaths.

Over recent years, there has been little progress to reduce neonatal deaths and rates are not on track to meet the 2025 target for England (which will be reported in 2026). The most recent neonatal mortality rate, for births at 24 weeks gestation onwards, in England remains at 1.4  per 1,000 births as of 2024. For every year that progress is off-track, more lives are lost; we estimated that up to 800 babies’ lives per year may have been saved with better care.

We have renewed calls for updated government targets – including a neonatal mortality rate of 0.5 per 1000 births by 2035 – to keep neonatal safety firmly on the national agenda.

Identifying where improvements to neonatal care quality are needed is essential to reverse trends of preventable deaths.

The Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit is currently undertaking more detailed work to look at policy change needed to support improvements in neonatal care.

 

Links: 

Interactive featured chart on our  data hub 

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*PMRT was launched in 2018 for England, Wales, and Scotland. Northern Ireland has been included since 2019.