New Maternity Bereavement Suite at Hillingdon Hospital - Baby Loss Awareness Week 2022

The Maternity Department at Hillingdon Hospital provides maternity support for up to 5,000 mothers and babies each year. Whilst most women go into pregnancy expecting healthy babies, sadly some couples lose a baby. 

I’m Lucy Wills and I have with me today Shirley Clipp, Major Appeals Manager, and Priya Vara, a mother of three born at Hillingdon Hospital, one of whom was still born. They are here to talk about our new Materniy Bereavement Suite at Hillingdon Hospital. 

The Suite was funded jointly by Hillingdon Hospitals Charity and the hospital Trust.

The charity has raised over £200k to fund the Bereavement Suite, giving families the valuable space to mourn the loss of a baby. 

Thanks for listening and don't forget to come back for a new episode each Monday!

Let us know what you thought of this episode or what else you'd like to hear about from across the Trust by tweeting us at @HillingdonNHSFT.

For all the latest Trust news and information check out our website - www.thh.nhs.uk/

Transcript

0:1:33.10 --> 0:2:3.920
 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 The maternity department at Hillingdon Hospital provides maternity support for up to 5000 mothers and babies each year. Whilst most women go into pregnancy expecting healthy babies. Sadly some couples lose the baby and we're thinking about them, particularly this baby loss week from the 9th to the 15th of October. I'm Lucy Wills and I have with me today Shirley Clipp, the trust major appeals manager and Priya Vara, a mother of three, born at Hillingdon Hospital, one of whom was stillborn. They are here to talk about our new.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Maternity bereavement suite at Hillingdon Hospital. The suite was jointly funded by Hillingdon Hospitals charity and the Hospital Trust. The charity has raised over 2200 thousand pounds to fund the bereavement suite, giving families the valuable space to mourn the loss of a baby. Welcome and thanks for joining me and Shirley, can you tell us more about the need for agreement suite at Hillingdon Hospital?

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yes, I can.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah, started a couple of years ago when Joe DUNCKLEY, our Labour ward manager, came to the charity I work for Hillingdon, Hospitals, charity, and she came one day, knocked on the door and said.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 She worked at a previous trust where there was a facility. Nothing. Nothing like her sweet. Nothing like we've got now. But she said there was a room away from the labour ward where a families could go. Couples could go and actually deliver the stillborn baby in the room and care for it away from hearing live babies being born and families celebrating. And she said it was desperately needed here at Hillingdon. And could we raise the funds to provide that facility?

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Oh gosh, yeah.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 And she was so desperate, she said she would be happy to even have a caravan in the car park as long as it was away from the labour ward. And it provided that privacy.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So we started to look into it and what you think might be a simple thing to provide is quite complicated in, in, in the NHS and in the trust. So there was a lot of planning involved. It took a couple of years to come to fruition.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Umm.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 But in speaking to because we wanted it to be patient led. So we spoke to the mothers and the families that have been through this experience because no one knows, apart from those that have been through it.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Mm-hmm.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 What would be needed? What would be needed to make it a bit more comfortable? It's it's never gonna be a better experience, but a bit less traumatic than it would be at the moment where you are on a labour ward.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So we found out that the the main thing was to have a separate exit and entrance and to be away from hearing families with live babies.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Umm.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Unspeak we by speaking to lots of families, we got the criteria that we needed to then plan and put into action to bring this to fruition.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 And.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 That sounds.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Exactly.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 And this.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah. So the payments he gives the family psychological safe space where they can mourn, mourn their loss and make special memories with their baby in the time that they got out of the charity, raise the money to contribute.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah. Wow.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 I'm we raised 200,000, as you said, 100,000 came from the mums that actually have been through this experience, Priya being one of them, Priya who raised over 50,000 for the project. But other mums two came together and raised a total of 100,000. The the charity then raised another 100,000 by doing events such as.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 And that's half marathon scavenger hunts at Christmas and Easter plants sales. A number of things. Anything we could think of to raise the funds, that to meet the target.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 How long did it take to raise the money?

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 It took a couple of years, especially as it.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Was hit by Covid's and which made it very difficult, but we've just found other ways and I know Priya four more inventive ways and imaginative ways to raise money. But yeah, we all we all knuckle down and and did what we could because we knew how important it was.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 They praised on an amazing job of raising over £550,000 for the building the suite.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Can you tell us about your experience prayer?

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 Vara, Priya
 Sure. So UM, back in August of 2017, I gave birth to my son, Shayen, who was born, who was born sleeping. And the care that I received at Hillingdon Hospital was just second to none. So although the you know the experience was tragic, it was devastating that we'd lost him. You know, the love and support that we received from the staff was actually pretty incredible. And you know, I say this really heartfelt because, you know, speaking from to loads of other people now.

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 Vara, Priya
 It's not the common story. People do struggle with the standard of care, and it's great to be able to say that Hillingdon hospital do have that nailed down in terms of the quality of their staff. The only thing that I thought needed improvement was the actual space, you know, as Shirley said, hearing other babies crying when you've been through something like this, being scared to walk out of your room because you know you fear of bumping into other mothers who have newborn children, it's it can give you quite a lot of anxiety.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Mm-hmm.

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 Vara, Priya
 And so it's the one thing that I left thinking. If they had a space like that, it would be pretty great. And I I still remember the day that I walked into Charlie and Dave's office and I'd arranged to have a meeting with them and they said Ohh, it's on the books already. You know, we've got this, this, this project that we're looking to kick off. And I said, what can I do to help? And then my husband and I thought about it and I said, you know, we had done lots of charity work in other areas of the world, so responsive to school in in India and under she's name. You know, we've done quite a few things.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 Vara, Priya
 And abroad, I said, there's something that I really wanna do here and that's helped the hospital, you know, they did so much for us. Even my birth aftershave. And you know, the care again and support that I received just to get me through that pregnancy was great. So I said I'd like to give something back. And so we spoke to Shelly and David and I said, you know, how much do you think it would cost? And we were looking at 200,000. I said I think we can do 50. My husband looked at me and he was like you mad. But I said no, I think it's doable only because I knew so many people who.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 Vara, Priya
 Cared, passionate passionately about this and for them, when you give money to charities, when you can actually see something that's being done with the money, I think that really does make such a difference.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Mm-hmm.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Mm-hmm.

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 Vara, Priya
 And so we kicked off on she's birthday. Actually, we kicked off a whole project and we said right, this is the goal and we want our family and friends always saying to us, what can we do for you? What can we do for you? Let us know what we can do. And I said, look, instead of just giving me money, go and do funding for us. Do whatever you want. Just go and fundraiser. Go and raise some money.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Here, how did he? I mean, you've raised an amazing amount of money to contribute to the project. How did you raise so much?

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 Vara, Priya
 So people were jumping out of planes. They were.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Well, again, I said.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Uh, yes.

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 Vara, Priya
 But but the author, someone did a triathlon. My husband dressed up as Mr. T for a week like we had anything. But then what? I did start to realize is we did a couple of events. So I had a few of my friends help with doing a Diwali event for children doing a Christmas event. And that's where the money was really being raised. More so we thought, right, that's the way to go. And then we actually had a whole calendar of events planned. The only problem is COVID then kicked in so.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Mm-hmm.

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 Vara, Priya
 Our pants just got completely stopped because we couldn't do anything face to face for such a long period of time and and actually we were in a bit of a funk after that because I was like, how are we gonna do this now? It's gonna be impossible.

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 Vara, Priya
 And so we just started thinking of other ways. So, like we did the Diwali event, if we instead gave out these boxes of arts and crafts to send to children so that they could still enjoy the festival at home. And I started.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So you carried on through COVID.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Mm-hmm.

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 Vara, Priya
 Yeah, we, I mean, I just didn't want it to stop because I thought we had so much of omentum and, you know, literally in August, by December, we were halfway there. We'd got to like 2025 thousand, I think. So I thought we can't just stop now because then it's gonna take us ages to get that momentum back. So we carried on and I started even selling things. So I started making things at home and selling them. I did, like, an Advent calendar for Christmas and all sorts of things. And. And then virtual events kicked off.

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 Vara, Priya
 So I had a few friends who had committed to doing like concerts and things for us, and instead of doing them face to face, they did them virtually. And actually people just started donating money and we got there. We managed to get, yeah.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Wow, what amazing story can you tell us what the suite will mean? Do you think for other mothers going through what you went through, having out a different, different environment?

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 Vara, Priya
 Yeah. Do you know, I think the difference with this week is, you know, we went to see a few other hospitals and their suites. And I think the difference with this is, Shirley said is it's patient led and the beauty of Hillingdon hospitals, charity is that they listened and they rena, I think every single thing I had said to Shirley, she went ahead and went and investigated to see if we could do it. You know, they really took into account all the little things that we had said about making the space, you know, don't make it clinical, make it soft, use colors.

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 Vara, Priya
 And use art on the wall and make it so that people don't have to walk through corridors to get to where they need to make.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 Vara, Priya
 They just thought about everything and I think that at a time, you know, I still have moments where I think about being wheeled through those corridors to other areas to have checks done. And I just felt so awful and I still that still is carried with me. And if we can remove anxiety like that from our mothers who go through this, I think it will really help them in their in terms of their mental work while being afterwards.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah, for sure. The Shirley, can you tell us about the sweet now and how many mothers do you think we'll use this suite?

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Right.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 We we have an average about 62 baby loss cases a year. So I mean and that doesn't necessarily mean one a week or a couple of week, it could be a couple of weeks where we don't have anything and then you might have two in a week or so. It's unpredictable, but it's it is constant and it does happen, it's rare but it happens and.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Inevitable.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 What we try and do is to give those mothers and and partners and families just a chance to, as Preas said, make memories. So I don't think it maybe you're listeners won't realize, but what we do is we have a cold cot in the room so the baby can stay refrigerated in the cold cot next to the bed of of the family and be cared for up to a week if if they want to stay there that long.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 And.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Uh.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 In the suite we have.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 And a lounge, a kitchenette where they can make meals themselves and importantly, as listening to the mothers, they wanted outdoor space. So there's a a lovely little cottage garden that they can sit out in in the.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Pleasant weather and get some fresh air, not just stuck within 4 walls.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah, like you say, it's listening to the patients and making it what they wanted. You also, as a charity, continue to raise money for bereavement. Can you tell us about that?

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 But what we did was we, again, after listening to Priya and in the other mums on on the ward that.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Counseling is is very important environments. One thing, but it doesn't end when they just walk out of that environment and go home.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So we did grant applications, we've done fundraising and we've managed to procure two years worth of petals specialist bereavement counselling for baby loss.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So couples who will get six weeks counselling and then a further six weeks when they fall pregnant again, which is going to be quite traumatic.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So that is the whole package is important, not just one aspect of it.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 Vara, Priya
 And that's a bit in particular, you know again the number of months that I've spoken to who have had to wait, you know, eight to nine months after loss before they had any specific counseling. And again I was really lucky I got access to it straight away. And I think it's important that, you know, mums can walk out of the hospital knowing they've got that support.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yeah.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 If somebody wants to continue to donate and donate, particularly to breathe and counselling, how would they go about doing that?

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 If they could go on to the Hillingdon Hospitals website, they can donate there and it would be very much appreciated because the need is going to continue.

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 CLIPP, Shirley (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 Yes.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 So the Hillingdon hospitals charity, the charity website thehillingdonhospitalscharity.org. Thank you so much for joining me and talking about this subject. I mean the carrot. Hillingdon provides great midwifery care. We know that because mothers come back and back. But it's so important to have this maternity bereavement suite to support mothers in a time of loss.

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 WILLS, Lucy (THE HILLINGDON HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)
 If anyone wants to find out more about the project ordinate. As we said, go to 100 in hospitals charity website or find out more about our maternity department from the Trust website at thh NHS UK.