Parent Engagement Materials
Parents' whose baby has died have the greatest stake in understanding what happened and why their baby died. They should be central to all reviews carried out using the PMRT.
Engaging bereaved parents in the review process and including their views and any concerns and questions they have about their care will enhance the process and ensure that from the outset the review addresses their questions. Parents, particularly mothers, are the only individuals who were present for the whole of the pregnancy and therefore have a unique perspective on everything that happened to them and their baby. Sands has produced a short video outlining the value of parent engagement in the perinatal review process: The Parent Voice: Sands' Charlotte Bevan on parents and the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT)
Flow chart for parent engagement in perinatal review
Parent Material Templates
Engaging bereaved parents in the review process, does not mean having the parents present at the review, it means talking to them and asking them for their views and any comments or questions so that these can be considered in the review.
We provide materials to support staff in Trusts and Health Boards with engaging bereaved parents. Initial versions were developed by a multidisciplinary group within the MBRRACE-UK/PMRT collaboration including bereaved parents and were based on the findings from the PARENTS study and the 'Being Open' process in Scotland.
In 2024, these were updated by using the Person-Based Approach to development which includes interviewing bereaved parents and clinical staff to get immediate thoughts and reactions and iteratively updating the materials to make them as clear, compassionate and accessible as possible. You can download these below and amend them as needed.
Translated Parent Materials
We are pleased to provide these materials in a range of other languages. We have the materials available in Arabic, Bengali, Simplified Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Welsh. These will be available to download here soon but if you would like the translated files now, please send a request to adele.krusche@npeu.ox.ac.uk.
Plain English guidance for writing letters and summary reports to bereaved parents
Letters and reports written for bereaved parents need to be written using appropriate and sensitive plain language. Examples of poorly written letters were evident in the cases reviewed in recent confidential enquiries. The PMRT will not generate a letter from the technical report suitable for parents but we do provide infromation about how to write in Plain English
We also include an example of a poor letter, written to parents after the review findings, and an example of how that letter might have been improved with clearer and more sensitively worded information: Poor and improved summary letters.
Bereaved parents really value hearing health professionals express sadness or sorrow at the death of their baby, which in UK law is not an admission of liability. It is important to show a normal, compassionate response to such a distressing loss. Sands statement: “Why saying sorry is not a blame game”.
Key contact responsibilities and person specification
Both the PARENTS study findings and the 'Being Open' process recommend bereaved parents being allocated a key contact who can act as a link between the bereaved parents and the perinatal mortality review team. Key contact responsibilities for the responsibilities of the key contact and a person specification.