This year’s AGM and Members’ Conference will be hosted by the North Network in Liverpool.

Date and time: 8 October 2011 9.30am - 4.30pm

Venue: Atlantic Tower by Thistle, Chapel Street Liverpool L3 9RE

Theme: "Offering support and making memories"

If you are not yet a member you can join online via the shop here »

For members travelling from further afield we have negotiated a special discounted room rate with the hotel; please call Central Reservations on 0151 472 2851 or 0151 472 2898 and quote SAND071011. Also, there are lots of other hotels in the area should you prefer to stay elsewhere. Please contact Liverpool Sands on 07594 580092, for advice.

We look forward to hearing from you and to welcoming you to this year’s AGM and Members’ Conference.

Over 60 delegates attended the AGM hosted by the Welsh Network at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff.

Charlotte Bevan, co-author of the Saving Babies’ Lives Report 2009 opened the conference with an update on the work of the Research and Prevention department. We continue to work with parents, policy makers, scientists and health professionals to try to understand why babies die and whether their deaths could be prevented with better care and more research. While there is a definite downward trend in the neonatal death rate, the stillbirth rate has shown little change over the last decade and we are currently funding two research projects which aim to manage potentially at-risk pregnancies better. We are also involved as stakeholders in several other research projects. More information on this work can be found on the research pages of our website.

Dr Alexander Heazell, Clinical Lecturer in Obstetrics at the University of Manchester spoke at the conference about the projects he is involved in thanks to our funding. Having completed a survey of UK obstetricians, midwives and perinatal pathologists on Care after Stillbirth he has now almost completed a survey of parents whose baby was stillborn. He is now preparing to conduct a similar survey of parents whose baby died shortly after birth He is also currently surveying UK Medical and Midwifery Schools to determine the current levels of training to care for families after a perinatal death present within their curriculums. Following on from his project to study placental structure and function in pregnancies complicated by reduced fetal movements, he is now researching placental structures from pregnancies that have ended in stillbirth. He hopes this will enable better prediction of poor pregnancy outcome when there is reduced fetal movement. Dr Heazell has also instigated a Regional Stillbirth Certificate Audit to examine the accuracy of the information recorded on stillbirth certificates.

Claire Storey and Maria Viner from Bristol Sands described their ongoing work with their local NHS Trusts that has seen the Group change from being regarded as service users to being seen as stakeholders with an important part to play in influencing teaching and training within their local NHS Trusts. They are currently working with their local NHS Trusts as part of a Trust-initiated Maternity and Newborn Services Review to ensure the needs of bereaved parents in the Bristol area are taken into account.

The afternoon session opened with a very moving account from Siobhan Hughes of her experience after finding herself unexpectedly giving birth to her stillborn daughter Niamh. At the time she was unaware she was pregnant and she described how she was helped to make sense of her experience and gather memories with the help of a very sensitive mortuary assistant.

This year saw the publication of our Bereavement Care Report 2010 following our online survey of maternity units by our Improving Bereavement Care team Judith Schott and Alix Henley. Judith informed delegates about the key issues of 2009/10, including our successful challenge of the ambiguous wording contained within the published National Institute for Clinical Excellence’s (NICE) guidance on seeing and holding a baby after death. They have now issued an update to health professionals to indicate that bereaved parents should always be given a choice to see and hold their baby. For more information on this issue please go to the Improving Care section of the website and click through to News and Updates.

Marion Currie gave a brief overview of the many ways our supporters raise funds to support our work and in particular how the online donation pages provided by JustGiving have helped raise an impressive £1.7million since we started using them in 2002. She closed with a visual presentation highlighting and thanking many of the fundraisers that continue to amaze us with their ever inventive ways of raising funds.

Finally, Chief Executive Neal Long made presentations to two long-serving members of the Head Office team. Finance Manager Nitya Nandi and Office Administrator Muriel Hoole will be retiring early next year after many years of hard work and commitment to Sands.

Thank you to everyone that helped make the day a success, especially Welsh Network Convenor and Trustee Shirley Gittoes and the Radisson Blu hotel in Cardiff for their support with the accommodation.