Working towards safer maternity care
The theme of this year’s World Patient Safety Day is improving safe maternal and newborn care. Gulnar Vasta (Gully), senior improvement advisor at Barts Health, discusses how a new maternity safety programme aims to do just that.
The quality improvement team are working in collaboration with Barts Health maternity services to improve care. Speaking to maternity colleagues on the subject of maternity care, two things are clear:
- every pregnant woman wants a positive hospital experience; from antenatal right through to postpartum care
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every healthcare professional involved in an expectant mother’s care journey wants to provide safe, high quality care
The purpose of Word Patient Safety Day is to raise awareness of safety issues, support collaborative working to improve maternal and newborn safety and advocate the adoption of good practices to prevent avoidable risks and harm.
This is an aim that is aligned to our trust’s Quality Strategy, where patient safety is a core priority.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for our three great maternity units to improve many aspects of the safe ways in which we look after the mothers and babies of east London. Our teams will work alongside each other, working for excellence!" Dr Chris Gordon, group director of improvement
At Barts Health, we are developing a dedicated patient safety programme for our maternity services. It aims to harness the scale of the group, define outcomes, embed standards and foster an improved patient safety culture across the Barts Health.
The patient safety programme is underpinned by Weimprove QI methodology, using what is known as a 'practicum approach'.
The practicum approach offers a unique opportunity for those working to improve maternal and neonatal care to learn about the improvement methodology and apply the theoretical knowledge into practice.
“Improving outcomes and experiences for women and their families is my number priority. I’m really looking forward this work.” Shirley Peterson, group director of midwifery
It is a known fact that staff are best placed to identify areas for improvement and to find sustainable solutions, often working in partnership with patients.
To date, the programme has engaged with key individuals across our three maternity sites: The Royal London, Whipps Cross and Newham hospitals.
Following discussions there has been a lot of learning, reflecting and identifying initial improvement opportunities to help improve our safety culture.
Learnings include:
- Collaborating on improvements across the trust so that no matter what hospital an expectant mothers goes to she will recieve the same great care
- The importance of including expectant mothers in the redesign of our service so we are meeting their needs
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Appreciating the diversity of patients that come through. Every mother’s needs are different and our care should reflect this
Want to get involved?
Get in contact with Gully and help us make the right changes to improve maternal and new-born safety.
Hearing from programme members
“This programme is really important. People who use our services can be confident of receiving safe care.” Kelechi Uneze, lead midwife, The Royal London Hospital
“We will use the programme to focus on decision making in continuous fetal monitoring. Looking closely into our validated tools, escalation process, plan of care and teaching programme will improve our safety culture.” Marie El Antoury, midwifery clinical educator at The Royal London Hospital
“We can embed a safety culture within maternity that is not punitive but supportive. If we get governance right we, improve the safety and care of every who accesses our service.” Penny Bliss, governance lead midwife, Newham Hospital