Tommy’s campaign calls on MPs to prioritise miscarriage care

Earlier this week, Prince Charles gave a speech to mark the start of the new parliamentary session. As it kicks off, we’re asking our supporters to write directly to their MP or representative urging them to make miscarriage a priority.

The Government in Westminster is due to publish its new Women’s Health Strategy for England this spring, with the publication date still to be confirmed. The strategy is an important document which will describe what the Government intends to do to address the health conditions and inequalities which affect women. 

We believe it is vital that miscarriage is named in the strategy as a key area where much more support is needed. We also need to continue our work to ensure miscarriage care is high on the agenda across the rest of the UK. 
 
Some progress has been made. In June 2021, Olivia Blake MP delivered our petition (then on 175,000 signatures) to Parliament in support of our campaign to improve miscarriage care across the UK. She raised the findings and recommendations of our Miscarriage Matters Lancet research with then Health Minister, Nadine Dorries MP. 

We also ensured that our research was submitted through the Women’s Health Strategy call for evidence, which ran across March – June 2021. 

Following the publication of the Lancet research, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists updated their recommendations to encourage the NHS to adopt the Tommy’s ‘graded model of care’ so parents can get support after every loss and earlier access to specialist tests and treatments.

Nadine Dorries has since moved to another position in government, but Tommy’s is committed to keeping our miscarriage campaign at the top of the political agenda.

Earlier this week, Prince Charles gave a speech to mark the start of the new parliamentary session. As it kicks off, we’re asking our community to support our campaign by emailing your MP or representative to ask them to add their voice to help make miscarriage care a priority. 

If you don’t live in England, don’t worry, we have emails you can send to your local representative to encourage them to take action on miscarriage care. Please know that we'll continue working to ensure miscarriage care is high on the agenda across the whole of the UK. 

We know that the current system of miscarriage care is not working for women and people who give birth:

  • Currently, you have to experience 3 miscarriages in a row before you can access any support. We believe this is wrong. Parents should be entitled to support after every miscarriage. This should include support to deal with the physical and emotional impact of miscarriage, and to prevent future losses
  • Access to miscarriage care can vary depending on where you live. It shouldn’t be a postcode lottery. We’re calling for consistent miscarriage care to be available 24/7 in every area of the country, including access to dedicated Early Pregnancy Units
  • Miscarriages are not recorded or included in any official statistics. This means that there is no way of knowing how many miscarriages happen in the UK so we can’t set targets for bringing the number of losses down. We believe that every miscarriage should be acknowledged and recorded, and the figures should be published

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