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Plea:

Our bereavement service is for families who experience loss during pregnancy, birth, neonatal and paediatrics here at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Trust and is based in the maternity unit at Warrington Hospital. We are honoured to have received this nomination for the Best Hospital Bereavement Service. The bereavement service was recognised with a special recognition award in the 2014 Butterfly Awards for service improvement and we were truly honoured by it. The trust’s latest CQC inspection highlighted the bereavement service as an area of outstanding practice in their report which we are extremely proud of.

Our families are at the heart of everything we do and our service reflects the trust’s values:

Quality: Tailoring the care to each family’s needs and ensuring that standards are met across the board.

People: Staff development and training is key to being able to provide a high standard of care for the families who experience our service

Sustainability: Is about growing our service and expanding it across the Cheshire and Merseyside region and nationwide and acting as a role model to other hospitals

We continue our work to improve the service and make changes for the better to care for our families and ultimately the babies. We have implemented the national programme from NHS England “Saving Babies Lives” toolkit which has 4 domains: smoking cessation, identifying small babies using customised growth charts and timely interventions, increasing women’s and healthcare workers’ awareness of reduction in fetal movements and “fresh eyes” review of CTG (fetal monitoring) in labour.

…” We are proud of our bereavement team here at Warrington & Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, they offer additional support to women and their families at a time when they need it most. Their dedication, commitment and professionalism is commendable. Not only is this recognised by their peers and colleagues, but also by the women and their families as they make such a difference at a difficult time in their lives….” Rachael Browning – Head of Midwifery

Our successful bereavement study day continues and our third event will take place in September this year with delegates attending from across the North West region. Topics this year include parent’s stories; care of bereaved siblings; neonatal palliative care, sensitive communication, perinatal pathology, communication and the role of a funeral director.

This is just one example of how this trust has strived to promote excellence in the delicate area of bereavement care, recognising that education and training of staff is essential.

Our bereavement follow up service is going from strength to strength. We now offer this service from early pregnancy losses through to children.

We offer the following:

• home visits, telephone support, texts, e-mail, based on individual needs, guiding families through the grieving process and painful firsts such as birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries, for as long as they need.
• Facilitate access to local and national support groups. Emotional support throughout subsequent pregnancies and in those pregnancies with a life limiting diagnosis, offering choices of home, hospice or hospital and parallel planning with the family.

We recognise and support our staff and provide a support service for midwives caring for bereaved families, so that they have someone to talk to in confidence.

Annually, we have a candlelight remembrance service in December for families who have lost a child. This takes place at the local parish church and is very well attended. We also host in December the annual Christmas party for bereaved siblings. Our chaplaincy at the hospital holds a book of remembrance for all babies.

…” All the team in the hospital recognises the significance of the loss of a baby and how painful that experience is. In my work as a chaplain I have met several mothers who historically, did not have the chance to grieve for their baby, and say goodbye in a way that was meaningful for them. For some, that negative memory has stayed with them for many years.
I believe that when Debbie Yates was appointed it enabled the Trust to provide a more comprehensive service for all those parents who have lost their precious babies. It is important for us to help parents say goodbye in a way that reflects their own backgrounds and beliefs. As a trust we now engage effectively as a team and with others locally and nationally who share the vision for this important service…..” John Duffield – Hospital Chaplain

Memory Making

Memory making is very important to us here and we are always looking for ways to develop based on feedback from our families. We work closely with staff to support and discuss options based on the individual family’s needs and wishes. We offer the following: – an SD card so that they can take their own photographs supported by sensitive photographs taken by the team. From 23 weeks gestation we are able to offer the family ‘Remember My Baby’, which is a professional photography service, who will come in to the hospital and take pictures of the baby and the family. The company will then send the family a CD of all the pictures taken free of charge. It is a valuable service creating high quality memories.

We also offer hand and foot prints and casts where possible and a variety of books for children to help them understand what has happened. Our most recent addition to memory making is a wooden initial of baby’s name with a message attached made for us by ‘A whole lot of Lovely’ and funded by Harry & Co.

By far the most important thing we can give as a memory to our families is ‘time’ and remembering that anything they want to do is usually possible.

Our charities that we work with provide us with a lot of the funding to make our memory making special.

Collaborative working – helping us achieve more

We continue to work closely with our local charities Life after Loss, Harry and Co and Warrington Sands. Working collaboratively means the trust achieves more and helps us to do the best in the most difficult circumstances. Our recent project saw improvements brought to our Antenatal Day unit; we have upgraded the counselling room, bringing it in line with the standard of all of our other bereavements support rooms. We have also had a voice through our joint poster presentations at two national conferences resulting in further improvements to bereavement care through sharing ideas and networking

Harry and Co

The charity organises the annual Angels Walk, a family event which visits each of the dedicated baby memorial gardens in Warrington, families who have lost a baby have the opportunity to share their experiences with others. The event also fundraises to help provide monies to maintain the Rainbow Room (our neonatal room) and The Butterfly Suite (labour ward) and most recently the refurbishment of the ANDU counselling room. Collaboratively we also a Christmas party each year for bereaved siblings. Harry & Co support the education and training of staff and have funded places on study days and contributed to the mandatory training programme. The charity also has specialist online support groups for families.

Our joint plans this year are to upgrade another delivery room, next to our Butterfly Suite, for mothers who require medical intervention for delivery so this can be done in more comfortable surroundings, away from our busy labour ward. Harry and Co also provide items for the memory boxes and books for families to help them with their own grief and sibling grief.

Life after Loss

They continue to provide us with our very special memory boxes and they are now distributed to hospitals nationally free of charge on request through networking at a national conference. The charity has an established monthly support group which we recommend to families and also provides individual support sessions if required. The charity has recently had a bid application granted to fund a specialist monitor for the antenatal day unit.

They have provided the hospital with a bespoke casket for sensitive transportation of babies to the mortuary.

The team from Life after Loss have delivered education sessions for our healthcare assistants about baby loss, to help them support the families, staff and ultimately themselves.

Warrington SANDS

We work in partnership to ensure that each family receives a bereavement support pack containing all the SANDS information booklets and local contact details. They run a very successful monthly support group which we recommend to our families as additional support and will also provide support on an individual basis.

All three charities help fund the bereavement study day and attend with support stands to provide invaluable information and contact details for our delegates

We also work closely with many other following charities and volunteers including :-

Ride4Lilly – the charity has held fundraising events to help support maternity bereavement services by providing comfort baskets, blankets and comforteds

Emily’s Star- Who provide beautiful boxes for our parents on the neonatal unit and allowed us to share Emily’s story at one of our bereavement study days.

Our family’s experiences

I work as a Midwife at the hospital and have cared for many bereaved families, utilising the support and knowledge of the bereavement team to ensure families are cared for in the most sensitive, appropriate way. Not for one second did I think I would be one of those families and need the support and care offered by the bereavement team. I would like to share my story as I feel that the team deserve recognition for the hard work and amazing care they provide to make such painful, difficult times that bit more bearable.

My daughter Eleanor was born at full term following a normal, low risk pregnancy. She was born with undiagnosed hydrocephalus. Shortly following her birth, Eleanor was taken to the neonatal unit where, whilst being prepared for transfer to Alder Hey hospital, she stopped breathing and was put on a ventilator. We were moved to the butterfly suite on the labour ward, which is less like a hospital room and more like a home from home, decorated sensitively yet comfortable. Following further investigations, we were told that Eleanor had a brain tumour and there was nothing that could be done for her. My world collapsed around me and I think in some ways, I went into ‘work mode’ to ensure my husband and family were supported and Eleanor’s dignity was maintained. But I was not at work; I was a mummy to Eleanor and needed the same support and guidance that I was used to giving. Eleanor remained on the neonatal unit and we were encouraged and supported by the staff there to do ‘normal’ mummy and daddy things with her and build memories. Something that I am so grateful for as these are the only memories we have of our precious daughter. Eleanor died later that day after we requested she be taken off the ventilator. Thinking back, everything feels like a blur but there are certain things that stick in my mind. Debbie Yates helping and making sure that we took photos of Eleanor whilst she was alive. The midwife, Kath Jones, who looked after us in the butterfly suite every night that we were there – the kindness and support she offered is something I will never forget. The consultant paediatrician, Dr Bedford and the registrar Dr Reid who helped us take Eleanor’s hand and foot prints. The nurses on the neonatal unit who looked after Eleanor after she died and hand crocheted a hat for her. The midwife Kath O’Neill who supported my family to hold and cuddle Eleanor. The ‘remember my baby’ service and the lady who came in on a Sunday to take valuable photos of our family. We have so many lovely memories to keep of Eleanor for which we are so grateful and if it were not for the staff encouraging this, we would have no memories. The hospital chaplain, John Duffield even conducted the funeral service at our request. Nothing seemed too much for them.
When you leave the hospital without your baby, you feel so lonely, like nobody knows what you are going through. Having Debbie Yates visit us whenever we felt we needed her to was a godsend. Just to be able to talk and have someone listen to your every word, to make you feel like you are not going mad and to suggest things that you would not even think of, like memory making, signposting you to support groups, helping with funeral arrangements. I always knew that Debbie was at the end of the phone and just knowing that was a huge support for me and made me feel less alone.

We were lucky enough to fall pregnant again and this year we had our second daughter, Hannah. The pregnancy, as you can imagine, was fairly stressful and full of anxiety and fears. From the beginning our consultant, Dr Arya, was on hand offering regular scans. Even if we didn’t have a scan scheduled for that week, I knew that I could ask her for one if I was feeling particularly anxious. She is so compassionate and kind and we always felt safe in her care. I saw Debbie Yates regularly too and she listened to anything and everything I needed to say – I always came away feeling calmer and more positive and she helped me to enjoy my pregnancy. Debbie also helped make sure my requests were listened too, for example I was worried how I would feel if this baby needed to go to neonatal unit, I felt I could not go back there. Debbie made sure that if this baby needed any tests, they could be accommodated elsewhere. She also organised for the consultant paediatrician to be present at the birth. Just by doing this, I felt much more relaxed knowing that the team would do anything to make this a different experience. I had all my antenatal care in the antenatal day unit where the midwives would listen to my baby’s heartbeat whenever I felt nervous and I knew that I could ring them whenever and they would see me.
In all, the team have been fantastic, they are always there and nothing is too much trouble. They say it is just part of their job and yes, it is, but they really care and are going through it with you. They seem to understand how you are feeling and will offer anything possible to help make things that bit easier. I cannot thank them enough and they will truly never know how much of a difference they have made to me and my family during such a difficult time. They have travelled with us on our journey to a new chapter in our lives and I know they will never forget Eleanor. They are not just my colleagues; they feel like a part of my family now. Shanaz – mummy to Eleanor and Hannah

The bereavement team have played an important role in our lives for the past year and a half. The support we received was much appreciated by us both. The team helped us through such a difficult time in our lives and gave s the support we needed. The job they do is so important to the many families who unfortunately they have to work with! We are just so glad we had the team to look after us and ensure we had the care and support we needed. Lucy & James – parents of Niamh Marie, Harriet Rose and Orlaith Marie

From the moment we found out that William had passed away the bereavement care was outstanding from all members of staff that looked after us. Throughout the tragic ordeal of losing a baby we felt that everyone genuinely cared and had empathy for us whilst at the same time were very professional in explaining what needed to happen for example, after birth choices, memory making, spending time with William. Having had this support from the bereavement service at the hospital it has helped us create some positives from the loss of our little boy. Without this service it would have made an already devastating situation much worse. Rebecca – mummy to Gracie Thomas, William & Jack

Our Future

Our future here at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is to continually look at ways that we can develop and improve our service for our families and to help other trusts to enhance their bereavement service. Please vote for us in this year’s award, as by working together we have proved that we can make such a difference to bereavement care.

Thank you for taking the time to read about us.

What others have said:

Bereavement care is high on the agenda and there is great emphasis on the training & development of all health care professionals involved with the care of bereaved families and high quality care and support for families following a loss and during subsequent pregnancies. The bereavement service has been presented at national conferences as an example of how working collaboratively with local charities helps achieve more.