Dignity Care
Founded by Laura Corcoran, Dignity Care have developed the Miscarriage Collection Cradle; a patented, Class I Medical Device designed to restore dignity , privacy, and clinical safety to the miscarriage process. Enabled by the RTO grant from UK Edge Innovate UK Business Growth, Health Tech Enterprise has collaborated with Dignity Care to develop an initial Health Economic Assessment from an NHS perspective, helping build the evidence base needed to integrate this more compassionate solution for early pregnancy loss into NHS standard care.
The Challenge: A Crisis of Dignity
In the UK, over 680 miscarriages occur every day. Despite this frequency, clinical infrastructure for managing the physical process has historically lacked compassion. For decades, women experiencing early pregnancy loss (EPL) at home or in hospital have been forced to use makeshift household items, such as kitchen sieves, takeaway boxes, or plastic bags, to collect remains for medical investigation or burial.
This approach to home management is not only deeply traumatic for families but also clinically inefficient. Standard hospital containers are often transparent surgical specimen jars that offer no privacy, while traditional collection methods often lead to faecal contamination, making accurate histopathological or genetic testing difficult. In the absence of dignified alternatives women may opt for healthcare resource intensive medical or surgical management.
The Solution: The Miscarriage Collection Cradle
The Miscarriage Collection Cradle is a discreet, aesthetically sensitive, and sterile container designed specifically for early pregnancy loss. It has been designed as a more respectful alternative to traditional methods available to women and its features provide many benefits.
The Miscarriage Collection Cradle sits securely inside the toilet bowl, held in place by the weight of the user on the toilet seat to prevent slippage and the devastating risk of losing remains. Its unique semicircular shape leaves a gap at the back, allowing faecal matter to pass directly into the toilet while collecting only what is necessary and a removable sieve with handles allows for “no-touch” transfer of remains into a specialized, opaque storage container, minimizing direct exposure and emotional distress. The Miscarriage cradle could be provided as part of a “Compassionate Clinical Care Kit” which were recommended to be provided to patients as part of the UK Governments 2023 Independent Pregnancy Loss Review.
Project Outcomes
HTE worked closely with the Dignity Care Network to create a sophisticated initial health economic model that would allow us to predict the cost impact to the NHS as a consequence of providing the miscarriage cradle as an option for miscarriage management. HTE conducted one to one interviews with six clinical experts based in early pregnancy assessment units to help inform the structure of the model. The eligible patient population derived based on these interviews and was modelled across two gestational groups and three management categories. The modelling also evaluated the potential budget impact of the reduction in genetic testing wastage resulting from contaminated samples.
The initial results showed very positive NHS budget reductions with a conservative uptake of the miscarriage cradle across a time horizon of 5 years. Suggesting that the miscarriage cradle could offer a very valuable solution to families experiencing early pregnancy loss whilst also delivering budget savings to the NHS.
“Working with HTE allowed us to bridge the gap between a compassionate idea and a viable clinical product offering value to the NHS. Their expertise in health economics provided the data-driven confidence that NHS Trusts need to make a change that profoundly impacts family experience.” — Laura Corcoran, Founder & CEO, Dignity Care
