Perinatal Mortality Review Tool | PMRT

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The national PMRT is live and available for use by Trusts and Health Boards

All staff requiring access to use the PMRT need to be authorised to do so, even if they are already registered to use the MBRRACE-UK system.

Authorisation for access is via completion and return of the authorisation form by email to: mbrracele@npeu.ox.ac.uk

The PMRT has been designed with user and parent involvement to support high quality standardised perinatal mortality reviews on the principle of 'review once, review well'.

The aim of the PMRT programme is to support standardised perinatal mortality reviews across NHS maternity and neonatal units in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The tool supports:

Systematic, multidisciplinary, high quality reviews of the circumstances and care leading up to and surrounding each stillbirth and neonatal death, and the deaths of babies who die in the post-neonatal period having received neonatal care;
Active communication with parents to ensure they are told that a review of their care and that of their baby will be carried out and how they can contribute to the process;
A structured process of review, learning, reporting and actions to improve future care;
Coming to a clear understanding of why each baby died, accepting that this may not always be possible even when full clinical investigations have been undertaken; this will involve a grading of the care provided;
Production of a technical clinical report. This should be used for discussion with parents from which a meaningful, plain language explanation of why their baby died whether, with different actions, the death of their baby might have been prevented, and any implications for future pregnancies they may have;
Other reports from the tool can be generated from the tool to enable organisations providing and commissioning care to identify emerging themes across a number of deaths to support learning and changes in the delivery and commissioning of care to improve future care and prevent the future deaths which are avoidable;
Production of national reports of the themes and trends associated with perinatal deaths to enable national lessons to be learned from the nation-wide system of reviews.
Parents whose baby has died have the greatest interest of all in the review of their baby's death. Alongside the national annual reports an infographic of the main technical report is written specifically for families and the wider public. This will help local NHS services and baby loss charities to help parents engage with the local review process and improvements in care.
Implementation support materials and parent engagement materials are available to support the conduct of high quality reviews and the use of the PMRT. Further details of the programme are available on the PMRT programme page.

The scope of the PMRT encompasses England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Duration of the programme: Initiated in February 2017, following a further competitive bidding process the current contract with the Department of Health and Social Care for the PMRT programme runs until 31st March 2026.

Funding: The PMRT programme is commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care for England and on behalf of the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland Governments; as a consequence the tool is free for use by Trusts and Health Boards in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.