Today has been a really positive day for us.

Two days ago we received an email from a lady called Alison Bowes. 
She told us that she was the new Lead Bereavement Midwife for Leeds. 
This is a brand new post created by Leeds NHS and Alison is going to be developing the post.

She is planning to support women and their families upon diagnosis of a problem with a pregnancy, leading up to delivery and then following discharge from hospital. 
She aims to support them within the community rather than them having to keep returning to the hospital.

Her ideal situation almost mirrored our aims, 'That all bereavement services should be brought together to prevent further distress and to provide seamless care.'
To hear someone else say that this is what is needed was fantastic and showed us that our fight for improvements was right.

She asked to meet with us today to look at what we as a charity are aiming to achieve, but to also talk to us as a bereaved family to see where we thought improvements and changes need to be made.

I don't think she realises quite what she has let herself in for !!

Alison came across as a very caring and motivated lady who has some excellent ideas on how to improve the support bereaved families receive. 

She was really keen to listen to our experiences and agreed with us that the support families receive on discharge is vital. 
She shared many ideas she has for developing her role and asked for our feedback on her ideas and if we could suggest any other ways of providing support.

We all felt that she was really listening to our ideas and was taking our suggestions on board. 

All of us feel that this post may have come about partly due to our persistent campaigning and meetings with NHS bosses. 

We have had times over the last 2 and a half years when we have wondered whether it was worth all the stress but today for us showed that it most definitely was. 

We feel so very proud of our Charlie, and really do see that now Alison is in post the lives of hundreds of bereaved families will be made easier.

Thank You Charlie for making us keep up the fight.








 Ideally I think all bereavement services should be brought together to prevent and further distress and to provide seamless care.