How the Bereavement Ready readiness assessment works alongside the National Standards for Bereavement Care Following Pregnancy Loss and Perinatal Death in Irish maternity services.
Irish maternity units have worked to national bereavement standards since the HSE published them in 2016. A revised edition in 2022 extended them to early pregnancy loss and to diagnoses of life-limiting fetal anomaly.
The standards describe what every hospital should provide. The question for a unit is whether that care holds when the bereavement specialist is on leave or a new intake of staff arrives. This assessment measures the structures that make it hold: named ownership, current policy, documented training, staff support, and a review cycle that leadership sees.
It does not replace the national standards or any audit of them. It is free, takes about fifteen minutes, and produces a Readiness Snapshot your team can bring to a quality or governance meeting.
The 2016 edition organises the standards under four headings. Each is summarised here in our own words, with the questions that measure the structures behind it. Item numbers refer to the 29 scored questions; IE numbers are the Irish questions.
| National standard | Assessment questions | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bereavement Care. Care that is central to the hospital's mission and offered in line with the parents' religious, cultural, and personal values, from diagnosis through discharge and ongoing support. | 4.3, 4.4, 6.3, 6.5 | Full |
| 2 | The Hospital. Governance, policies, care pathways, records, physical environment, and monitoring that keep bereavement care central. | 1.1 to 1.3, 2.1 to 2.4, 5.2, 6.1, 8.1 to 8.3 | Full |
| 3 | The Baby and Parents. High quality palliative and end-of-life care for each baby, matched to the parents' wishes.Questions 4.1, 4.2, and 5.1 cover choices, memory making, and time with baby. Palliative and end-of-life care for the baby itself, including symptom management, is outside the 29 questions. | 4.1, 4.2, 5.1 | Partial |
| 4 | The Staff. Education and training for all staff in compassionate bereavement and end-of-life care, with support structures for staff. | 3.1 to 3.4, 7.1 to 7.3 | Full |
| Requirement | Assessment questions | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | A Bereavement Specialist Team, including a clinical midwife specialist in bereavement. | 1.2 + IE-1 | Ireland question |
| b | Private, suitable rooms for breaking bad news and for bereaved families. | 5.2 | Full |
| c | Memory making offered to every family. | 4.2 | Full |
| d | Post mortem discussed with parents, with a results meeting around three months after discharge. | IE-2 | Ireland question |
| e | The family's GP told by phone on the day of discharge. | 6.3 + IE-3 | Ireland question |
| f | Induction training for all relevant staff, with refreshers every three years. | 3.1, 3.3, 3.4 | Full |
| g | Parent feedback, complaint handling, and regular perinatal mortality review. | 8.1 to 8.3 | Full |
The assessment also measures what the standards assume but a busy unit can lose: documented leadership support (1.1), an annual policy review with a named owner (2.4), and a written improvement plan with owners and dates (8.3).
The Irish version is mapped to the National Standards for Bereavement Care Following Pregnancy Loss and Perinatal Death, published by the HSE in 2016 and revised in 2022. The specific requirements above are taken from the 2016 edition.
Naming the HSE shows where the content comes from. The HSE has not reviewed or endorsed Bereavement Ready.
Choosing Ireland adds three short questions at the end. Your answers appear in a separate Ireland panel on your results, so an Irish result can still be compared directly with any other unit.
Choosing Ireland changes how the questions read, not what they measure. Every scored question keeps its number and its meaning.
| Who is listed in the roles question | Midwifery, nursing, medical, social work, chaplaincy, support staff |
| Lead role | Clinical midwife specialist in bereavement |
| Sites of care | Emergency department, early pregnancy unit, labour ward, neonatal unit |
| Shift change | Handover |
| Staff support | Employee assistance programme |
| Spelling | Irish and British English |
| US cost figures | Not shown. There is no verified Irish equivalent. |
The published benchmark currently comes from participating units in the United States. Irish results are shown beside it and clearly labelled, and an Irish benchmark will be published once enough units have taken part that no single unit could be recognised.
Bereavement Ready is independent. It is not part of the HSE and is not endorsed by it. The standards belong to the bodies that publish them. Bereavement Ready measures readiness against them.
Responses are anonymous. No hospital name is collected. See Privacy and Data Use.