Published 23 July 2026
Today, Miscarriage UK has published an open letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP. The letter urges the Government to ensure miscarriage and other forms of pre-24-week pregnancy loss are recognised as an integral part of maternity care, rather than continuing to be overlooked in policy and service improvement.
Read the full letter below.
Dear Yvette,
Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
At Miscarriage UK, we look forward to working with you to improve care for everyone, including the hundreds of thousands of people whose pregnancies end in loss before 24 weeks’ gestation.
Every year, around 250,000 pregnancies in the UK end in loss. That’s around one in every four pregnancies. Despite this, miscarriage remains one of the most misunderstood and overlooked experiences in healthcare.
As you begin your tenure, we urge you to ensure that pre-24-week pregnancy loss is recognised as an integral part of maternity care systems, rather than something that sits on the sidelines.
We welcomed the decision to commission the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, led by Baroness Amos, and were encouraged that miscarriage was explicitly included within its terms of reference. We submitted evidence and shared the experiences of over 1,000 members of our community – people directly impacted by pregnancy loss – in the hope that their voices would help shape future pregnancy and maternity policy.
However, we were deeply disappointed that the final report contained virtually no reference to miscarriage or other forms of pre-24-week pregnancy loss. When the experiences of one in four pregnancies are absent from the evidence, they risk being missing from future policy too.
Our recent Miscarriage in the UK: State of the Nation report – based on the experiences of more than 1,000 people affected – found that miscarriage care is currently a dismissive and dehumanising experience. Two thirds of people said they did not receive adequate follow-up care after their loss, while almost 70% experienced mental health difficulties. These findings highlight the urgent need for miscarriage to be fully embedded within maternity improvement programmes, with consistent standards of care, routine follow-up and meaningful data collection to drive improvement.
With the Taskforce poised to act on Baroness Amos’ recommendations, we urge you to ensure that pre-24-week pregnancy loss is fully considered. It is not possible to improve maternity care while overlooking one of the most common and distressing outcomes of pregnancy.
This year, following Miscarriage UK’s Leave for Every Loss campaign, the Government committed to introducing bereavement leave for people experiencing pregnancy loss before 24 weeks through the Employment Rights Act. This was a landmark recognition that pregnancy loss should be seen as a bereavement, just like any other.
However, recognition alone is not enough.
Pregnancy loss affects hundreds of thousands of people every year. Yet too often those experiences remain invisible within healthcare policy.
Your appointment presents an opportunity to change that.
We stand ready to work with you, your department and the new taskforce to ensure that pregnancy loss is no longer the missing part of maternity care. Together, we can build a system where every pregnancy, every loss and every person is recognised and compassionately supported.
Yours sincerely,
Vicki Robinson
Chief Executive
Miscarriage UK