How the Bereavement Ready readiness assessment works alongside the National Bereavement Care Pathway in NHS maternity and neonatal services.
The National Bereavement Care Pathway describes what good bereavement care looks like for parents and families. As of June 2024, every NHS trust in England had signed up to it, and NBCP Scotland runs alongside it.
The harder question for a trust or health board is whether that care holds when the bereavement midwife is on leave, when the rota changes, or when a new intake of staff starts. That is what this assessment measures: named ownership, current policy, documented training, staff support, and a review cycle that leadership sees.
It does not replace the NBCP self-assessment. It sits underneath it, measuring whether the structures that make the nine standards reliable are in place. It is free, takes about fifteen minutes, and produces a Readiness Snapshot your team can take to a maternity governance meeting.
Each NBCP bereavement care standard is summarised in our own words, with the assessment questions that measure the structures behind it. Item numbers refer to the 29 scored questions. The full wording is on the Sands NBCP page.
| NBCP standard | Assessment questions | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Personalised care for every bereaved family. | 4.1, 4.3 | Full |
| 2 | A suitable bereavement room that families can actually use. | 5.2 | Full |
| 3 | Every family offered the chance to make memories. | 4.2 | Full |
| 4 | Families told about emotional support, and referred to specialist psychological support when they need it.Questions 6.3 and 6.5 cover follow-up and referral to grief support. Referral to specialist psychological support is not asked as a separate question. | 6.3, 6.5 | Partial |
| 5 | A system that signals to every member of staff that a parent has been bereaved. | 5.3, 6.2 | Full |
| 6 | Families confident that the service will learn from their baby's death, and kept informed throughout.Domain 08 measures family feedback and annual review. Parent involvement in the PMRT review is covered by UK question UK-2. | 8.1 to 8.3 + UK-2 | Partial |
| 7 | Care from a team with the right staffing. | 1.2, 1.3 | Full |
| 8 | Training and resources for every member of staff who cares for bereaved families. | 3.1 to 3.4 | Full |
| 9 | Real support for the staff who provide this care. | 7.1 to 7.3 | Full |
The assessment also measures three areas the nine standards do not name directly: documented leadership support (1.1), a current policy with a scheduled annual review (2.1 to 2.4), and a written improvement plan with owners and dates (8.3). These are what allow the nine standards to survive staff turnover.
The National Bereavement Care Pathway was developed by a core group of charities, royal colleges, and NHS bodies. At its launch, Sands listed the core group as Sands, Bliss, The Lullaby Trust, The Miscarriage Association, ARC (Antenatal Results and Choices), the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing, the Neonatal Nurses Association, the Institute of Health Visiting, NHS England, and a representative of the UK health research community.
The UK version of this assessment is mapped to that pathway's nine standards. The three UK questions draw on the NBCP, the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool run by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford, and family information published by Tommy's and Acas.
Naming these organisations shows where the content comes from. None of them has reviewed or endorsed Bereavement Ready.
Choosing the United Kingdom adds three short questions at the end. Your answers appear in a separate UK panel on your results. Keeping them out of the score means a UK result can be compared directly with any other unit.
Choosing the United Kingdom 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 |
| Neonatal unit levels | SCBU, LNU, NICU |
| Lead role | Bereavement midwife or bereavement lead |
| Sites of care | Emergency department, early pregnancy unit, labour ward, neonatal unit |
| Shift change | Handover |
| Staff support | Occupational health, Employee Assistance Programme |
| Spelling | British English |
| US cost figures | Not shown. There is no verified UK equivalent. |
The published benchmark currently comes from participating units in the United States. UK results are shown beside it and clearly labelled, and a UK 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 NBCP, Sands, NHS England, MBRRACE-UK, or any regulator, and is not endorsed by them. The standards belong to the bodies that publish them. Bereavement Ready measures readiness against them.
Responses are anonymous. No trust or hospital name is collected, and location is recorded at nation level only. See Privacy and Data Use.