Maternity and Neonatal
About the programme
The programme aims to:
- Contribute to the national ambition set out in Better Births, to reduce the rates of maternal and neonatal deaths, stillbirths and brain injuries that occur during or soon after birth by 50% by 2025.
- Contribute to the national ambition set out in Safer Maternity Care, to reduce the national rate of preterm births from 8% to 6%
- Improve the safety and outcomes of maternal and neonatal care by reducing unwarranted variation and provide a high-quality healthcare experience for all women, babies, and families across maternity and neonatal care settings in England.
There are three main priorities the PSC will be supporting:
- Optimisation of the preterm infant, based around the BAPM optimisation toolkit which consists of nine evidence-based interventions.
- Early recognition of and management of deterioration in women and babies through supporting implementation of the Maternity Early Warning Score (MEWS) and the Neonatal Early Warning Track & Trigger (NEWTT2).
- Improve the quality of care by enabling leaders to drive change with a better understanding of the relationship between leadership, safety improvement and safety culture.
Who we are working with
We work closely with the national MatNeo SIP team, our regional collaboration includes close links with all the maternity and neonatal systems in the region:
- West Yorkshire and Harrogate Local Maternity Neonatal System
- Humber Coast and Vale Local Maternity Neonatal Systems
- South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Local Maternity and Neonatal System
We also work with:
- The Chief Regional Midwife
- The Yorkshire and Humber Maternity Clinical Network
- Yorkshire and Humber Neonatal Operational Delivery Network
- local Maternity Neonatal Voice Partnerships.
Senior leaders and frontline clinical colleagues from across the multi-disciplinary teams including preterm birth and neonatal teams at all our provider trusts.
Main deliverables
Optimisation
- To improve the effectiveness of the preterm optimisation pathway, which consists of nine evidence-based interventions.
- To achieve high reliability as a pathway approach of the nine evidence-based interventions.
We use quality improvement methodologies to support our local healthcare providers and systems to embed continuous quality improvement.
Deterioration
To ensure use of the Maternity Early Warning Score (MEWS) tool and Neonatal Early Warning Track & Trigger tool (NEWTT2) are embedded within an effective prevention, identification, escalation, response (PIER) pathway for managing deterioration and support:
- Develop representative stakeholder Task and Finish groups who will co-design the implementation plan to support digital transition of the national MEWS & NEWTT2 tools.
- Continue to support all components of PIER, e.g. BSOTS and Each Baby Counts Learn and Support toolkits, in readiness for implementation.
- Support systematic implementation in digital organisations once the tools are released and ready.
Culture
We will support perinatal leadership teams to create and craft the conditions for a positive culture of safety and continuous improvement, enabling a more psychologically safe, collaborative, and supportive workplace.
- Facilitate teams to come together and continue to share learning and best practice.
- Use QI coaching skills and continue building on improvement plans with a focus on developing relationships and collaboration across the perinatal team, and motivating improvement based on the shared vision and purpose established in phase one.
- Support delivery of local QI projects/initiatives relating to trusts’ safety culture improvement plans.
- Support the adoption and spread of safety culture interventions and resources. These could include the NHSE Civility and Respect toolkit, SBAR and the Each Baby Counts Learn and Support toolkits, as well as newly emerging evidence-based tools.
How to get involved
Please contact:
Helen Brown helen.brown@yhia.nhs.uk – Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme workstream lead