Southend Hospital aims to continue improving its neonatal care after new data found it had the lowest number of still births in the whole country.

The figures from Mbrrace-UK have shown that the hospital had just 0.91 babies death directly after child birth per 1,000 babies between January and December 2016.

The Perinatal Mortality Surveillance Report looked into the amount of still births, neonatal and perinatal deaths in babies at more than 130 NHS trusts in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Mandeep Singh, clinical lead in obstetrics and gynaecology and consultant in fetal maternal medicine at Southend Hospital, said: “Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s maternity unit continues to strive hard to reduce the still birth and neonatal mortality rate.

“The perinatal mortality surveillance report confirms that Southend has one of the lowest neonatal mortality and stillbirth rates in England.”

The figures for Southend Hospital were taken based on a sample of 3,823 babies that were born in 2016.

On average the hospital delivered ten babies every day.

The Basildon and Thurrock Hospitals NHS Trust also performed well with 1.07 per 1,000 babies sadly dying in neonatal care.

Although the results from 2016 make for very positive reading for future parents in Southend, Dr Singh is confident the hospital will continue to decrease the percentage of neonatal deaths in years to come.

He said: “We continue to provide high quality safe care to our women and new born babies and have introduced new interventions that aim to further reduce the stillbirth rates.

“As a team of we continue to work hard and aim to reduce stillbirth rates by 20 per cent by the year 2020, which is in line with governments initiative to make childbirth in the UK the safest in the world.”

The report from Professor Jennifer Kurinczuk, national programme lead for Mbrrace UK said that although as a whole the results for countrywide were “a little disappointing”, the rate of new born deaths in childbirth had as a whole decreased since its last report in 2015.

The report also found that the rate of stillborns for twins had decreased by half.

Prof Kurinczuk said: “There is no single solution to reducing the number of babies dying.

“A complex series of service quality improvements will be required to ensure that every potentially preventable death is indeed prevented.”

However, Prof Kurinczuk had a warning for experts about the figures and their effect on some parents.

She said: “Before reflecting on the statistics it’s important that we remember that each number in this report represents the tragic death of a much-wanted baby, two bereaved parents, other grieving family members, and a future life full of promise never realised.”