The Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (ROCG) launched a national quality improvement programme in 2015 which aims to reduce the number of babies who die or are left severely disabled as a result of incidents occurring during term labour.
The ROCG suggests that each year between 500 and 800 babies die or are left with severe brain injury because something goes wrong during labour. The ROCG does not accept that each of these incidents are unavoidable tragedies and via the “Each Baby Counts Project” they are committed to reducing the level of unnecessary suffering and loss of life by 50% by 2020.
On 9th June 2016 the ROCG launched the first annual “Each Baby Counts” report. The key messages in this report include:
- Over a quarter of local investigations into stillbirths, neonatal deaths and severe brain injuries are not good enough.
- Recommend that the care of every baby eligible for Each Baby counts gets a comprehensive and robust review by a multidisciplinary team that has time set aside for them to complete this work.
- Give parents the opportunity to participate with that review in accordance with their wishes.
- Focus on finding systemic rather than individual-level actions and recommendations to improve future care.
- To introduce an additional perspective of an external panel member and to recognise what this will bring to local reviews.
- Engage with the new standardised perinatal mortality review tool when it becomes available.
For a detailed review of the report please visit: www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-research-services/audit-quality-improvement/each-baby-counts/sign-up-to-receive-the-each-baby-counts-newsletter/
