Beareaved parents face ‘harrowing’ delays for NHS postmorterms

Bereaved parents are enduring “harrowing” delays of more than a year to find out why their child died because the NHS has too few specialist doctors to perform postmortems. The shortage of paediatric and perinatal pathologists is revealed in a report by the Royal College of Pathologists published on Sunday. It warns that the situation is “dire”, services in some parts of the UK have “totally collapsed” and families are paying the price. The NHS has so few of those doctors that in some regions the bodies of babies and children who have died have to be taken elsewhere for examination, for example from Northern Ireland to Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool, the college says. “Our service is in crisis”, said Dr Clair Evans, the chair of the college’s advisory committee that represents pathologists who specialise in the care of under-18s. “This is having a significant and distressing effect on families who regularly report long and harrowing waits for postmortem results. “One in five families are now waiting six months or more, and some longer than 12 months. There are simply not enough consultants to undertake this work and families are suffering.” For example, the BBC reported in July on the case of Katie Louise Llewellyn and her partner, Aled Wyn Jones, from Carmarthenshire, who were still waiting to hear why their three-year-old son Tomos had died unexpectedly 13 months earlier while they were on holiday in June. Wales has just two consultant paediatric and perinatal pathologists. There are none working in Northern Ireland or in the south-west or Midlands in England, according to a workforce audit published by the college. As a result, families can “experience unacceptable delays when waiting for test results” that reveal why their child died. “Bereaved families are facing a major increase in waiting time – or transfer out of their region – for postmortem examination of their babies and children”, the report adds. Postmortems “can help parents in the process of closure and give information that aids treatment in subsequent pregnancies”. The college found that: 37% of consultant posts in the UK are lying vacant. The UK has just 52 paediatric and perinatal consultants and 13 are due to retire in the next five years. Just 3% of consultants think current staffing levels are enough to sustain their service. Only 13 resident doctors are in training to become consultants in the specialty. Dr Clea Harmer, the chief executive of the baby loss charity Sands, said the report “adds to the growing evidence that workforce shortages are causing unacceptable and heartbreaking delays for bereaved parents in getting postmortem results”. She said: “At Sands, we hear regularly about the devastating impact of the lengthy delays on parents, who are left in limbo, waiting for answers and for vital information they need to plan their futures.” Related: Dangerous shortage of medics threatens safe patient care in England, top GP says Ministers and NHS bosses need to do more to “close the agonising gap between a baby dying and parents finding out why it happened”, Harmer said. As well as performing postmortems, paediatric and perinatal pathologists help to diagnose and treat sick children, including conditions that lead to other relatives being screened for it. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Bereaved parents have experienced the unthinkable and any avoidable distress to families in this heartbreaking position is unacceptable. “There are a record number of doctors across almost every speciality in the NHS, including pathology, and our 10-year health plan commits to the creation of 1,000 new speciality training posts, with a focus on specialties where there is greatest need.”