During the pandemic, we campaigned tirelessly for neonatal units to protect family involvement in care:
- Nearly 4000 people joined our COVID-19 focused Parents Aren’t Visitors campaign calling on UK Governments and health services to return to unrestricted parent access and provide better financial support for families during the pandemic.
- Met with Parliamentarians, Ministers and Health service leaders to push for parent access and involvement in care to be restored.
- Developed a position statement for neonatal services which helped some health services make their policies more flexible.
Our campaigning supported changes to national and local guidance during the pandemic.
Bliss was one of 13 pregnancy and baby charities that were Core Participants in the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. This gave us special rights in the Inquiry process, including being represented, making legal submissions and suggesting questions to the Inquiry.
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is an independent inquiry set up to examine the UK’s response to and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and learn lessons for the future. Most importantly, it meant that decisions made during the pandemic relating to pregnancy, antenatal, maternity, neonatal and postnatal care were scrutinised, and the experiences of families and their babies were heard and listened to.
In March 2026, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry published its report into Module 3, which assessed the impact of the pandemic on healthcare, including examining how healthcare systems responded, and the impact on services, patients and healthcare staff.
In the Module 3 report, the Inquiry recognised that the imposition of blanket visiting restrictions, including “only one parent being allowed to visit a newborn” – as well as women receiving difficult news in antenatal scans alone – caused significant distress. The Inquiry goes on to accept Bliss’ position that parents of babies in neonatal care are not visitors, stating clearly:
“The Inquiry agrees that, as a general rule, parents should not be seen as visitors but as an essential part of the care and support of a child.”
