Impact of Tommy's clinics

Our NHS-supported clinics deliver high quality specialist pre-conception and pregnancy care, recruiting families to clinical trials and putting our latest research findings into practice.

 

All of the work at our clinics has the goal of improving health outcomes and developing evidence based practice to reduce the number of babies who die during pregnancy or birth.

As part of our innovative research model, each research centre is associated with a number of NHS antenatal clinics and recurrent miscarriage clinics. At these clinics, members of our research team translate medical research into clinical practice in real-time. This means that patients can access cutting-edge clinical care, as well as have the opportunity to participate in medical trials.

Tommys National Centre for Miscarriage Research

Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research runs recurrent miscarriage clinics across 3 different sites in the UK.

At our recurrent miscarriage clinics, women and their partners are given the opportunity to take part in research trials, accessing cutting-edge treatments and tests. 

“The staff at the Tommy’s clinic at Birmingham Women’s Hospital seemed to understand how we felt and didn’t diminish what we’d been through. For the first time we felt hope. In the end, Tommy’s gave us more than hope; they gave us our rainbow baby.”

Kirsty from Preston had 3 miscarriages before she was referred to Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research clinic in Birmingham. She gave birth to her rainbow baby in 2019. Read Kirsty’s story here.

  • Number of patient seen in the clinics: In total, our clinics more than 3,000 patients between April 2023 and March 2024. 
  • Individuals recruited to pregnancy-related clinical trials: more than 500 individuals were recruited between April 2023 and March 2024 to pregnancy related clinical studies in progress at our centres.
  • Delivery of care in clinics: Across Birmingham, Coventry and Imperial, our clinical research fellows, PhD students, research midwives and nurses, and staff involved in clinical trial recruitment and research give over 8 days a week on activities that contribute to the delivery of care in the clinics. This includes providing direct care in clinics, recruiting patients to trials, taking samples, performing ultrasounds and providing support and advice to women and birthing people with pregnancy loss. 

Tommy's Manchester Research Centre 

Our dedicated team of researchers in Manchester run a network of 6 research clinics. At our clinics, we offer specialist care to women at high risk of pregnancy loss. These women have a chance to take part in clinical studies that improve our understanding of stillbirth, fetal growth restriction, hypertension (high blood pressure) and diabetes. The clinics allow us to translate research breakthroughs into clinical practice.

Our model is very successful. Since 2010, our research centre has reduced the stillbirth rate in the Greater Manchester area by 32% against a much lower national average rate of reduction.

 

At our clinics, we offer patients the latest evidence-based tests and treatments, and give them the opportunity to participate in clinical trials to advance our life-saving research.

  • Number of patient seen in the clinics: In total, our clinics 2,375 patients between April 2023 and March 2024. 
  • Individuals recruited to pregnancy-related clinical trials: 771 individuals were recruited between April 2023 and March 2024 to pregnancy related clinical studies in progress at our centre.
  • Delivery of care in clinics: Our research midwives and staff involved in clinical trial recruitment and research gave 5 days a week on delivery of care through our Rainbow Clinic, providing care and support for families in pregnancy after loss. 

“The Rainbow clinic scans were so reassuring. We don’t know why our daughter died at full term but we had been told its likely due to the placenta failing. Alex’s scans and explanations of how the placenta is working has reassured us so much."

We have now treated more than 35 women with Chronic Histiocytic Intervillositis (CHI) attending the research clinics who have received a bespoke treatment plan for this condition. To date, all pregnancies continuing beyond 20 weeks’ gestation ended in a live birth. This is particularly remarkable given that CHI is a condition with a 50% mortality rate.

  • Over the 10 years that the translational clinics have been in place at St Mary’s Hospital, there has been over 50% reduction in the number of babies with Fetal Growth Restriction born after 38 weeks.
  • The Rainbow Clinic, which provides specialist support in pregnancy following a stillbirth or neonatal death, has now been adopted by all maternity care providers in the Greater Manchester Strategic Clinical Network. Since first opening in 2013, it has supported over 900 families. There are more than 25 active Rainbow Clinics. 
  • The stillbirth rate at the Oxford Road Campus of Saint Mary's Hospital, which hosts the Research Centre, is 5 per 1,000 births. In 2017, this rate was 6.65 per 1,000 births, which is a reduction of 25%. 

“We can’t thank you enough for seeing us with our 2nd pregnancy. You’ve given us hope to dream again, that we might actually bring home Eliza’s sister. Thank you. Totally worth the 3-hour drive each way. We’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Read more about the impact of our work