Making miscarriage "easier to bear"

At Patient Opinion, we are inspired by giving patients a voice, and using that voice to improve services. Generally, our starting point is that the story of a patient or carer can change a service for the better. And, with 5-10% of responses showing a change, we think we've got pretty good at it. But, can we make a difference on a bigger scale? How would that work and what would it look like?

We have followed the passionate work of Mumsnet for a while. Their campaigns have had a big impact on social issues, and we have been particularly inspired by their recent Better Miscarriage Care campaign. We hear lots of stories that express frustration about miscarriage care, and it feels like a natural partnership to see if together we might enable patients to improve miscarriage care across the UK.

So, Mumsnet are asking their members to share feedback about their experiences of miscarriage care – both bad and good (we need to know what great care looks like too!). And we, at Patient Opinion, are doing what we do best – sending that feedback to the right staff, so they can respond to say thank you, or to say how they hope to improve the service.

We hope that, by working with Mumsnet we can help ensure that people who have had a miscarriage will receive that best possible care. Our hope is that these real stories can help transform the experience of care after a miscarriage.

And often, this could be easy to change... As one women who shared her story recently put it:

"I could not believe she showed no understanding or empathy... What seemed absolutely apparent was that this midwife was thinking only of the workload she had to face that day, which I understand may have made her feel snowed under. However it only takes a few extra seconds and some eye contact to make this experience that little bit easier to bear.”

It’s still early days, but already over 20 women have shared their story, and we’ll report back as this work develops… In the meantime, if you have a story about care after a miscarriage, please do share it. If you work for a service that hears such a story, please give it your all when you respond, and if you have any views on this work, please do comment below.