Family involvement in safety investigations: reflections for Baby Loss Awareness Week

This Baby Loss Awareness Week, now in its 22nd year, we join with families and communities across the country to remember the babies who have died and to honour all those affected by loss.

At MNSI, we are committed to learning from these experiences to make maternity and newborn care safer, ensuring families are listened to with compassion and respect.

Family involvement in safety investigations is vital. Their insights bring a unique perspective that helps us understand what happened and identify how care can be improved.

In this article, Lou Pye, Deputy Director at MNSI reflects on why family voices matter in our investigations, and how their contributions continue to shape safer care for the future.

We would like to extend our thanks to the families who have shared their experiences with us during our investigations.

Why family involvement matters

One of the key aims of Baby Loss Awareness Week is to “drive improvements in care and support for anyone affected and to help prevent pregnancy and baby loss”. A powerful way to achieve this is through effective family involvement in safety investigations.

Families offer a unique and essential perspective. Their insights often reveal aspects of care that are not visible in medical records alone. When families are excluded from investigations, their voices go unheard, and opportunities for learning are lost.

As Vincent and Davis (2012) noted, families are “privileged witnesses of health care… they are at the centre of the treatment process, and, unlike individual clinical staff, they observe almost the whole process of care.” Their contributions are vital to understanding what happened and identifying how we can improve.

Every investigation is an opportunity for change

Safety investigations are not just routine - they are opportunities to make meaningful change. Involving families is not only morally right; it is a matter of trust, transparency, and commitment to safer maternity and newborn care.

This Baby Loss Awareness Week, as we light candles in remembrance, let us also renew our commitment to listening, learning, and improving. We must ensure that families continue to inform our work and help shape a safer future for maternity care across England.

Our commitment

At MNSI we remain dedicated to achieving the aims of our directions through:

• Listening to families with compassion and respect
• Learning from their experiences
• Ensuring their voices shape our safety investigations
• Driving improvements in maternity care for all