More than half of bereaved parents felt unsupported at Lewisham Hospital, survey shows

More than half of bereaved parents rated their care at Lewisham Hospital as poor or very poor in a survey by Sands, the UK’s leading pregnancy and baby loss charity, released today.

Fewer than half of the respondents had any contact from a bereavement midwife, or were offered the use of a bereavement suite or any opportunities to make memories with their baby, according to the report which calls for urgent improvement to be made.

This falls short of the standards outlined in the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) which is in place across the UK to ensure parents receive consistently high-quality, compassionate and personalised care no matter where they are when they experience a bereavement.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust had signed up to the NBCP in 2021 and the NBCP has been officially incorporated into NHS England guidance since 2025.

Jessica Reeves, Head of Public Affairs and Campaigns for Sands, said: “From first words and first steps to school plays and sleepovers, there are any number of things we imagine experiencing with our children when we first discover we are pregnant.

“Bereaved parents are robbed of these experiences, which means that the few memories we are able to make with our babies are beyond precious.

“High-quality bereavement care can have a huge impact on the extent to which bereaved parents are traumatised by their experiences. The opportunity to make memories in the scant few hours bereaved parents have with their babies is absolutely fundamental to compassionate care.

“That so many families’ suffering is apparently being compounded by a failure by Lewisham Hospital to meet the standards set out in the National Bereavement Care Pathway is unacceptable.”

The Sands Lewisham Campaign Group was formed in response to concerns raised by numerous bereaved parents about the quality of bereavement care at Lewisham Hospital.

The report published today collates the responses of 19 parents who were surveyed between September 2025 and February 2026. Their experiences at Lewisham Hospital were between August 2002 and April 2025.

Several key changes have been made by Lewisham Hospital in this time period, including the appointment of a bereavement midwife in early 2021 - however, responses show an ongoing pattern of failures in bereavement care.

While 45% of respondents after 2021 rated their care as good or very good compared to only 20% before 2021, the proportion of those rating care as very poor has remained unchanged at 30%.

A parent bereaved in 2024 described being given no information or leaflets on loss and instead being given leaflets for living babies. Another parent bereaved in 2022 was only offered paracetamol for pain relief during her induction of labour.

Ingrid, a bereaved mum who experienced a late miscarriage at Lewisham Hospital in February 2021 and one of the members of the Sands Lewisham Campaign Group, said: "Nobody wants to hear those words: ‘I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat.’ We found out at our 20-week scan.

“From there, we were left to wander the hospital alone, made to wait with other pregnant women in a corridor, given some pills, and sent home to wait for two days for labour to start. Not a single phone call during that time.

“Baby loss is devastating. Poor bereavement care makes it even harder. We were robbed of a peaceful birth with our baby Charlie.

“We weren’t given the chance to make memories with her. The memory box only appeared after they had already taken her away. On that day, we felt like we didn’t matter to anyone, because our baby was already dead.

“In the worst moment of their lives, bereaved parents can’t fight for anything. All you can do is endure, and you need people around you who will carry you through it with care. This report shows exactly where that support is breaking down, and what needs to change so no other family is failed the way we were."

The Sands report highlighted that there were many individuals delivering brilliant and compassionate care but that a lack of resources and training meant that the bereavement support received by parents was patchy and often inadequate.

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One of Sands’ key recommendations is for an increase in bereavement midwife staffing in line with the standards outlined by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine. For Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, this would mean increasing bereavement midwife capacity from 2.0 whole time equivalent (WTE) to 2.7 WTE.

Rachel Burrell, whose daughter Rhema was stillborn in 2012 and who has been supporting families bereaved at Lewisham Hospital for nearly three years through her work with Sands as well as her own charity Ebony Bonds, said: “Many of the stories of families who have had a loss at Lewisham were quite harrowing.

“Some parents who have been through Lewisham have told us that they don’t even know where their baby has been taken. And then they get a call from the mortuary two weeks later telling them they have to come bury their child. No one’s explained any of that to them.

“In some cases, the six week check-up after a loss doesn’t even happen. Some bereaved parents are sent home never to be heard of again, without signposting, without care, without medical follow-up, without mental health support.

“I know that across the country we’re seeing a crisis in maternity care at the moment, but specifically for me, bereavement care seems to be the forgotten child of maternity. It’s like that ugly little sister that nobody wants to play with because it’s really hard to talk about.

“This needs to change. We need to have more resources and more training.”

A spokesperson for Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust said: "We recognise the courage and commitment of the bereaved parents who contributed to this work. We are deeply moved by the experiences shared in this report and acknowledge that we haven’t always got bereavement support right for parents in the past.

“We are on a continuing journey to improve all aspects of our maternity services, including our bereavement facilities, and we are committed to listening carefully to all feedback, so that we can respond and change in a meaningful way.”

Asked specifically about specialist bereavement midwife cover, the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust response was: "While we do not operate a 24/7 specialist bereavement midwifery service, which is standard across most NHS maternity units, support is always available.

“All of our midwives at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust receive additional, dedicated training in bereavement care to support families out of hours every year. Furthermore, we have a network of Maternity Bereavement Champions who lead, support, and continuously improve care for families experiencing pregnancy loss, stillbirth, or neonatal death."

The survey report comes in the wake of two landmark reports by Donna Ockenden and Baroness Amos last month, which highlighted numerous failings in maternity care across the UK.

The National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation report by Baroness Amos, in particular, found that there were structural inequalities and systemic pressures affecting the quality of bereavement care across the UK, leading to many families being let down by maternity services nationally.

Burrell said: “I just really want a collaborative and cooperative outcome from this report. I want Lewisham Hospital to listen to what parents are saying. I need them to hear that despite parents being promised change four years ago, the things that they experienced are still being experienced by parents today.

“It’s not good enough. We do not want empty promises, we want improvement. We do not want to hear these stories in 12 months’ time.”

Some of the other recommendations made by Sands include ensuring that the bereavement suite at Lewisham Hospital is upgraded, that memory boxes are offered to all bereaved parents and for follow-up care pathways to be strengthened.

Families who are struggling with pregnancy and baby loss can contact Sands through their helpline 0808 164 3332 or by email at helpline@sands.org.uk.

Additionally, Ebony Bonds also provides peer support and advocacy for Black families experiencing pregnancy and baby loss.

All hospitals also have a Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP), which is an independent association helping women and families get their experiences heard by the NHS, and can be reached here.

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