Maternity and midwifery services initiative of the year

Maternity and midwifery initiative of the year
Maternity and midwifery services initiative of the year
Read more

Facilitating quality and safety improvement in maternity services remains a top priority for the NHS, with a national ambition to halve maternal and neonatal deaths and significant harm. With goals to reduce unwarranted variation and provide a high-quality healthcare experience for all women, babies and families across maternity and neonatal care settings in England – Trusts are focused on delivering continuous improvement, creating a safety culture and learning from incidents.

This award recognises those who are making good progress in increasing the safety of maternity and midwifery services through improving access to perinatal mental health services, improving prevention, sharing data and employing better technologies. Judges want to see entries which can demonstrate shared goals of safe, personalised, professional, and compassionate care.

Eligibility

Judges are seeking projects that have demonstrably increased the safety and reliability of care for both new and expectant mothers and their babies. Entries are welcomed from across the NHS and public sector organisations.

Ambition

  • Describe the context of maternity care within the organisation, including a description of the safety record.
  • What was the ambition for the project, and how was this new or different from existing best practice?
  • Outline the targets set for patient safety and quality improvement, and what measures were put in place to achieve them.

Outcome

  • Clearly demonstrate the benefits of the initiative on quality of care, using quantitative evidence to show tangible positive impacts on the safe care of patients using maternity and midwifery services.
  • Discuss any other positive outcomes that were a result of the initiative, which could include improved patient experience, waiting time reduction, capacity increase or optimised triage and treatment pathways.
  • How effective was any collaboration with key colleagues, stakeholders, partners and patients?
  • Include patient and staff testimonials supporting the efficacy of the initiative.

Spread

  • Show how these improvements in provision of safe, high-quality care across maternity and midwifery services are replicable and scalable.
  • Outline the efforts made to share best practice, or examples of where this project has embedded and spread to other departments, settings or organisations.

Value

  • Clearly evidence how the initiative has improved value for patients and staff, in terms of patient experience, staff satisfaction and quality of care.
  • If possible, provide evidence of value creation in other areas, in terms of increased capacity, reduced costs, reduced variation and/or improved efficiencies.

Involvement

  • Show how patients were involved in decisions around their care, and their views were embedded in the design of the initiative.
  • Provide clear evidence of a multidisciplinary approach, with all relevant parties fully engaging in the work, including managers, medics and nurses as well as patients and families, and how this has led to improved safety.
  • Detail how a culture has been developed in which all members of staff can raise concerns and make suggestions for improvements.

To find out more

Contact Luke Adeniran for information on how to get involved with the Patient Safety Awards 2023 on 0203 004 5713 or email at luke.adeniran@wilmingtonplc.com