Health Minister Lawrie Hooper has confirmed that Maternity Services are currently ‘testing’ a baby loss certificate scheme.

During a House of Keys sitting back in March, Mr Hooper stated that the issuing of a certificate was something that Manx Care was ‘looking to introduce’, and referred to a voluntary scheme that had already been launched in the UK.

In response to a recent written question from Douglas South MHK Sarah Maltby asking what progress had been made, Mr Hooper said: ‘Maternity Services has established a formal application process for acknowledging the loss of a baby.

‘The framework and pathway enables families to electronically request a baby loss certificate before 24 weeks and will be offered to either parent backdated to September 1 2018.’

The ‘rigorous’ testing of this new pathway for parents is set to take place over the next couple of weeks, with Manx Care anticipating the ‘go live’ launch date to be in November this year.

The electronic application will feature on the maternity webpage.

Parents will need to meet certain requirements before requesting a certificate.

Requirements include losing a baby before 24 weeks of pregnancy; that one of the applicants is the baby’s parent or surrogate; the parent is at least 16 years old; the pregnancy ended on or after September 1, 2018; the parent lived in Isle of Man when they lost their baby and now currently lives in the Isle of Man.

All of these requirements must apply to applicants before a certificate can be issued, and if families have lost more than one pregnancy they are able to request a separate certificate.

Mr Hooper added: ‘The Care Group is working closely with the General Registries and Government Communication Service to devise the baby loss certificate. A considerate amount of effort is going into the design of the certificate as we recognise the emotional weight it carries for grieving parents.’