Category Archives: Report Publication

Suicide remains leading maternal death cause – Parliamentary Briefing

Parliamentary briefing highlights gaps in perinatal mental health care across England, raising concerns for mothers. 

Suicide remains the leading cause of maternal death in the year after childbirth, according to a new parliamentary briefing.

The report, published by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and co-founded by the British Psychological Society, estimates around 130,000 women each year experience mental health problems during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth.

130,000 women roughly equates to one in four.

Researchers warn that without urgent support, mental health problems can disrupt mother-infant bonding and increase the risk of emotional, behavioural and cognitive difficulties in children that may persist into adolescence.

According to the findings, suicide is the leading cause of death between six weeks and one year after pregnancy. Between 2021 and 2023, one in three women who died from mental health-related causes had received the recommended care, suggesting existing systems are not sufficient.

The financial cost is also high. Untreated perinatal mental health problems are estimated to cost the UK £8.1bn each year. Researchers say that investing £124m annually in training health visitors and midwives could bring nearly £500m in benefits over ten years.

Access to care remains something of a lottery. Specialist perinatal mental health services are considered world leading, but they mainly focus on women with moderate to severe needs. An estimated 115,000 women with mild to moderate systems fall into a gap, despite still requiring support.

The research also points to clear inequalities. Black women and those from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely to be asked about their mental health or to receive support. What’s more, women living in more deprived are less likely to experience these problems than those in wealthier areas.

The government’s Women’s Health Strategy, updated in April 2026, includes a £200m investment in the Healthy Babies Programme and Best Start Family Hubs. However, researchers and charities say staff shortages remain a major issue, with the number of health visitors falling by 21% since 2016.

‘Fear of judgement deters many women from disclosing mental health problems,’ the report notes, with an estimated 70% hiding their struggles. Without changes to funding, workforce capacity and continuity of care, experts say thousands of mothers and babies will continue to fall through the cracks.

The full report can be read here.

https://socialcare.today/2026/04/23/suicide-remains-leading-maternal-death-cause-report-warns/

May 13, 2026

Domestic Homicides and Suspected Victim Suicides 2020-2025 Report – Domestic Homicide Project

The fifth annual report from the national Domestic Homicide Project, which works across England and Wales, was published in April 2026. The report examines domestic abuse related deaths identified by police to improve understanding of risk indicators, victim and perpetrator demographics. The unique dataset provides detailed information on these deaths not available from any other source, helping police and partners improve their response to domestic abuse, domestic homicide and suspected victim suicide following domestic abuse.

The National Domestic Homicide Project is a Home Office funded research project led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and delivered by the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection (NCVPP) within the College of Policing.

As well as providing detailed analysis of domestic abuse-related deaths, the project also works with bereaved families of victims, who continue to be a key driver for change across the criminal justice system.

Key findings from the Year 5 report:

347 deaths were recorded between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025:

  • 150 suspected victim suicides following domestic abuse (SVSDA)
  • 125 domestic homicides, including:
    • 80 intimate partner homicides (IPH)
    • 45 adult family homicides (AFH)
  • 43 unexpected deaths
  • 17 child deaths
  • 12 ‘other’ deaths (where the victim and suspect lived together but were not related or intimate partners)

Across the five-year period (1 April 2020 – 31 March 2025), 1,452 domestic abuse-related deaths were recorded:

  • 641 domestic homicides (44%)
  • 553 suspected victim suicides following domestic abuse (38%)
  • 131 unexpected deaths (9%)
  • 86 child deaths (6%)
  • 41 ‘other’ deaths (3%)

For the third year in a row, suspected victim suicides following domestic abuse have overtaken other categories to become the most commonly recorded type of death. This reflects increased awareness and progress in identifying the links between domestic abuse and suicide.

Across the dataset, the majority of victims were female (73%) and most suspects were male (79%). In cases involving intimate partners, the most common scenario remained a female victim and male suspect.

In 88% of suspected victim suicide cases, there was a known history of domestic abuse recorded by police prior to the victim’s death, highlighting opportunities for earlier intervention.

Mental health was the most commonly identified care need for both victims and suspects, and coercive and controlling behaviour remained a key risk factor across multiple types of domestic abuse-related deaths.

In 70% of cases, the victim and/or suspect was known to partner agencies, reinforcing the importance of multi-agency working and information sharing.

https://www.vkpp.org.uk/vkpp-work/domestic-homicide-project/

 

May 13, 2026

The extent of violence in England and Wales, especially against women, is obscured by official Government statistics – new study reveals

Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, and Lancaster University, have found that Government statistics on violent crime underestimate the extent and severity of violence against women by as much as 39%, and underestimates violent crime against men by 26%.

When it comes to domestic violence the statistics reduce serious domestic violence against women by 59% and against men by 5%.

The researchers say this is causing a sex bias in the official violence statistics and is the result of limiting the inclusion of repeated incidents.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) caps the number of violent offences against the same victim measured by the Crime Survey of England and Wales.

The current cap replaced a previous much-criticised system which stopped counting repeated violent offences against a victim after the first five.

However, this latest study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, reveals the current capping system also causes significant bias by masking violent crime against women, especially domestic assaults, which is often a repeat offence.

The study used 19 years of data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (2001/02 to 2019/20) examining non-fatal assaults.

The authors say this sex bias in statistics on violent crime marginalises the experience of women and hides the repetition of domestic violent crime against women.

The study authors call for the capping method to be removed and, they argue, could be replaced with an alternative ‘moving average system’. This, they say, would also remove volatility in the statistics but would also prevent sex bias.

The study’s lead author, Professors Sylvia Walby, from Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “We welcome the Government Strategy to halve violence against women and girls and urge the ONS to improve the quality of its statistics by removing the capping and therefore the sex bias.

“Accurate measurement of the volume and distribution of violent crime is important for the distribution of public funding to the services that most need it in order to achieve social justice.”

Study co-author, Professor Brian Francis, from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Lancaster University, added: “By capping the actual statistics of violence against women, it underestimates what is happening in England and Wales, even though alternative statistical methods are available.

“We want to see the ONS include all repeated incidents to give us a proper and clear picture of what is happening in the UK, so we are better prepared on how to tackle violence reduction.”

The findings are detailed in the paper ‘Re-sexing violent crime: Sex bias in official estimates of violent crime underestimates the extent of violence against women and girls’, which is published in the British Journal of Criminology.

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/sex-bias-against-women-found-in-government-violence-statistics

April 23, 2026

Maintenance is used as a weapon all of the time – Gingerbread

Gingerbread has  published a joint briefing exploring the experiences of victim-survivors of domestic abuse with the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). Developed in collaboration with Surviving Economic Abuse, Women’s Aid, and victim-survivors, it highlights serious gaps in support and safeguarding.

What are our key findings?

For many victim-survivors of domestic abuse, the CMS is the only safe route to securing the financial support their children are entitled to. It is therefore essential that it provides a trauma-informed and safe service. However, victim-survivors tell us that the CMS is failing to meet their and their children’s needs.

Instead, they describe a service that is weaponised by perpetrators of abuse to continue coercive control and financial abuse post-separation. Our research finds persistent challenges with the service, including weak enforcement, payment loopholes, inadequate safeguards, poor specialist support, and a reliance on parents with care to report and investigate fraud and non-compliance.

These findings echo our Fix the CMS report, published in 2024, which showed that the CMS is failing to protect people who have experienced domestic abuse and, in some cases, is making the abuse worse.

The government has recognised misuse of child maintenance as a form of violence against women and girls (VAWG) within their VAWG strategy, and has announced welcome reforms to the CMS, including the removal of Direct Pay and a reduction of fees. However, the legislation for these reforms is not expected until 2027/28, despite the urgent need for change. Additionally, the government needs to go further to ensure the system meets the needs of victim-survivors of abuse.

What are our recommendations?

Our research found that victim-survivors want reforms to the CMS to include:

  • Urgently introducing legislation that will enable the government to safely transition service users from the Direct Pay service to Collect and Pay.
  • Providing specialist developed and delivered training and support for CMS staff to consistently identify and respond to domestic, including economic, abuse, with a particular focus on how the CMS is used to coerce and control victim survivors.
  • Improving safeguarding processes and procedures to help survivors safely engage with the CMS to manage their children’s entitlements. This includes basic procedures for alerting survivors to any changes or contact with a perpetrator that could increase their risk of harm, and ensuring access to specialist, trauma informed support.
  • Using stronger enforcement of non-payment and fraudulent non-disclosure of earnings responses, including improved automatic maintenance calculations based on cross-agency information sharing, proactive monitoring and investigations that do not place a disproportionate burden on victim-survivors to report or prove fraud, and a zero tolerance approach to non-compliance. The reforms should also close loopholes that allow abusers to misuse the enforcement process to evade accountability and urgently introduce secondary legislation to implement commitments made in the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023.
  • Removing barriers to the Collect and Pay service, by guaranteeing that victim-survivors can remain on Collect and Pay indefinitely to safely manage their children’s entitlements and waiving Collect and Pay fees for all parents, so that they are not financially penalised for relying on the CMS to safely manage their children’s support.

Vaila McClure, Head of Communications and External Affairs at Gingerbread, says:

“This research shows how the Child Maintenance Service is too often being used as a tool for ongoing abuse, rather than providing the safety and support families need.

Failures in safeguarding and enforcement are allowing perpetrators to continue to control and harm families long after relationships have ended, leaving children without the financial support they are entitled to.

Whilst the government has acknowledged the problem, recognition alone is not enough. Urgent reform is needed to protect children and the parents caring for them.”

Part of a longer press release at https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/our-work/news-and-views/maintenance-is-used-as-a-weapon-all-of-the-time-read-our-new-joint-briefing/

April 23, 2026

The economic consequences of gender-based violence – IFS

Summarising recent work on the economic impacts of domestic abuse, sexual assault and workplace harassment.

Gender-based violence has not historically been a major area of study for economists. Yet, in parallel with sociology and the law, it is also an economic matter. It reduces labour market participation, deepens inequality, and limits freedom of choice. It can also be driven by economic factors: women’s financial autonomy is tremendously important.

This emerging and growing field of research, applying economic tools to the study of gender-based violence, can help to improve our understanding of this important issue, and improve our ability to predict and mitigate harm.

Much of the research to date has been conducted elsewhere – in large part due to the availability of high-quality administrative data. In places such as Finland and other Nordic countries, detailed police records can be linked to individual earnings and information about firms.

In the UK, research is hampered by the absence of such a link. In 2019 the Home Office estimated the economic and social costs of domestic abuse at £66 billion (Home Office, 2019), which the National Audit Office (NAO) estimated to have risen to £84 billion by 2025 (National Audit Office, 2025). However, the NAO also notes that there has not been an effective whole-system response. In the battle against gender-based violence, if we are to truly understand how to best prevent and reduce it, better data and further analysis would be a huge gain.

Full article https://ifs.org.uk/articles/economic-consequences-gender-based-violence

April 23, 2026