THE woman who pioneered care for parents who lose their babies, has lost her job in the cutbacks at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup.

Ann Talbott was the Frognal Avenue hospital's maternity bereavement officer and raised the profile of such care at Queen Mary's.

She was instrumental in setting up the highly regarded Charlotte Suite, one of the few beacons of good practice at the hospital when it was heavily criticised by the Commission for Health Improvement three years ago.

The suite is a specially-designed facility for parents who lose their child before, during or soon after birth.

Her post was one of the 41 compulsory redundancies made by the hospital in its Fit4Future programme to counter its £19.7m debts.

Midwives petitioned the hospital to save her job, but were told they had not provided any alternative proposal to save a similar amount of cash.

They claim the hospital also told them it felt a midwife looking after the living would outweigh the needs of the bereaved.

Mrs Talbott left the hospital this month.

A former midwife at Queen Mary's, Anne Lincoln, who is now a midwifery lecturer, accused the hospital of "a great deal of insensitivity and lack of foresight" over the decision.

A hospital spokesman praised Mrs Talbott's "excellent work" and said it would continue despite her redundancy.

She said Mrs Talbott's administrative work would be done by other office staff while all midwives would be updated on how to deal with bereaved parents.

She explained: "Some of our midwives will have their roles developed so they can carry out more bereavement support with parents.

"Couples experiencing the loss of their baby will continue to be supported by the unit counsellor and the hospital chaplain."

She added: "We are very grateful to Ann for the work she has done in developing the bereavement service in the maternity unit, and in particular her work setting up the Charlotte Suite and working with the Perinatal Bereavement Interest Group which has helped maintain the funding for the suite."

The Charlotte suite, which will remain, has a bed-sitting room with en-suite bathroom.

It has two cameras and film, so parents can take photographs of their baby, and provides a memory book containing photos and mementoes.

Mrs Talbott also created a series of colour-coded packs to ease the administrative work necessary.