The Sands National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) is a best practice resource for improving the quality of bereavement care in maternity services.
The NBCP was developed by Sands, in partnership with the RCOG, Royal College of Midwives and organisations such as Bliss, The Lullaby Trust, Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) and The Miscarriage Association, to ensure that all bereaved parents and families receive consistently high-quality, compassionate, and personalised care following the loss of a baby.
The NBCP includes standards that address both the emotional needs of families and the professional requirements of staff, ensuring that care is consistent across settings. Practical guidance on bereavement rooms, memory-making opportunities, and timely emotional and psychological care will also support staff to improve care.
Sands’ Chief Executive Clea Harmer said: "Our work to improve bereavement care and embed these standards in NHS England guidance has only been possible through close partnership working and, above all, by listening to bereaved parents. Their experiences have shaped every element of the Pathways, ensuring that bereavement care after pregnancy or baby loss is compassionate, consistent, and centred on what families tell us they need most.
"It's so important that the recently updated standards in England now place even greater emphasis on learning openly and constructively when something goes wrong. This is essential for supporting safer practice and for strengthening the culture of openness that so many obstetric teams are striving to uphold. By working together. with clinicians, parents, and partners, we can all ensure every family receives the highquality care they need and deserve.”
Dr Alison Wright, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said:
“This is a hugely important step towards ensuring that every family affected by the tragedy of baby loss has equitable access to high quality, sensitive and compassionate care.
“The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is committed to raising awareness of this pathway, to improve standards of bereavement care across the UK, which we know urgently needs to happen.
“Key elements of the NBCP have already been incorporated into the RCOG Maternity Service Standards Framework, which was published in 2025.”
Recommendations embedded in the RCOG Maternity Service Standards Framework, published in December 2025, include that service providers should:
- Ensure implementation of bereavement care pathways and services in line with the national bereavement care pathway.
- Ensure adequate numbers of trained staff are available to discuss postmortem consent, so that families can be counselled within 48 hours of birth.
- Have clear referral pathways that include perinatal palliative care for women and pregnant people continuing a pregnancy affected by a known, life-limiting fetal anomaly and babies with life-limiting conditions. These services should include advanced antenatal care planning, birth care coordination, symptom management and bereavement support.
- Develop a system to ensure that all families are offered follow-up appointments after perinatal loss or poor serious neonatal outcomes. A system should be in place to clearly signal to all relevant healthcare professionals and staff that parents have experienced a bereavement, to enable continuity of care and ensure that people are invited for their post-natal check in a sensitive way.
- Ensure that all healthcare staff who come into contact with bereaved parents/families are provided with, and have immediate access to, training, support and resources to deliver high-quality bereavement care for all types of perinatal loss, including multiple pregnancies or after termination of pregnancy for fetal anomaly.
The RCOG welcomes the commitment of other governments in implementing the NBCP, with the support of Sands:
- The Scottish Government has made the NBCP mandatory for all 14 health boards in Scotland.
- Sands is introducing a National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) in Northern Ireland made possible by funding from Public Health Agency, to integrate the NBCP across the Health and Social Care system in Northern Ireland.
- Sands is supporting the Welsh Government to create tailored bereavement care pathways for those who have experienced pregnancy or baby loss in Wales, made possible thanks to funding from the Welsh Government.
The RCOG remains absolutely committed to supporting improvements in maternity safety within the system through its role as an educator: developing the curriculum, raising standards of care through the development of clinical guidance, supporting the career development of clinicians through exams, professional development courses and events, and support services for its members. The College also delivers research and quality improvement programmes that contribute to improvements in maternity safety and as part of its influencing and advocacy activity, ensures system wide improvements are identified and delivered.
To read more about the National Bereavement Care Pathway, click here.
To read the full updated Framework, click here.