Petals Welcomes Urgent Investigation into NHS Maternity and Neonatal Services

Petals, The Baby Loss Counselling Charity stands ready to contribute its unique psychological insight from supporting thousands of bereaved parents.

Yesterday, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, announced a national investigation into maternity care in England: a rapid inquiry that will urgently look at the worst-performing maternity and neonatal services in the country.

Stating that “we must act now”, he announced that the investigation will begin this summer and report back by December 2025.

All of us at Petals know only too well the impact on parents of poor maternity care and we therefore welcome yesterday’s announcement from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of a rapid national investigation into NHS Maternity and Neonatal services.

We stand ready to collaborate, to inform the investigation with our unique insight into the psychological impact of baby loss, from thousands of bereaved parents, and we will continue to support those parents with our evidence-based trauma focused counselling programme.

This is a crisis that needs action, and we will work with the investigation to deliver patient centred bereavement care.

Petals Founder and CEO, Karen Burgess, is optimistic about this announcement, stating:

“Parents need to have psychological support in the aftermath of these experiences. We are really hoping that this inquiry will expose the psychological impact and clearly show that it is part of the puzzle — part of the solution here — to ensure that parents are properly supported.”