Closed petition Make bereavement training mandatory for all midwives and maternity care staff

Closed on 3 May 2017

17 babies are either stillborn or die a neonatal death every single day in the United Kingdom. Despite this shocking statistic, many hospitals remain ill prepared to deal with these events. Staff often receive little or no bereavement training and facilities are inadequate.

There are more than 3600 stillbirths every year in the UK, and one in every 200 births ends in a stillbirth. Eleven babies are stillborn every day in the UK, making it 15 times more common than cot death. Many midwives have never received bereavement training. We have helped produce an e-learning course for the RCM which would give very basic training free of charge to the 33,000 RCM Members however only 1073 have registered, with 575 completing the course so far!