Shropshire health trust joins programme to improve healthcare experiences for women and babies
The trust running Shropshire’s two main hospitals is taking part in a programme to support improvement in the quality and safety of maternity and neonatal units across England.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) is taking part in the Maternal and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative (MNHSC).
The trust’s head of midwifery Sarah Jamieson, clinical director for maternity Adam Gornall, and lead midwives Jill Whittaker and Louise Watkins, will spend the next 12 months learning about quality improvement; and how to use these skills to lead projects to improve the healthcare experience for women, babies and families.
An extensive ‘home’ improvement team will be taking part too, consisting of representation from all staff grades, multi disciplines and patient representatives; along with Fiona Ellis, programme lead for the Local Maternity System (LMS).
Sarah Jamieson, improvement lead and maternity safety champion, said: “I am really excited to learn more about using quality improvement skills to help do things better. I know that we already have lots of great ideas to test out that could make a real difference to the women and babies we look after.”
Improvement
Over the next 12 months, the team of improvement leads will receive intensive coaching and training.
They have already attended a three-day learning set in Manchester, along with Improvement leads from 42 other trusts, where they learnt about quality improvement methodology.
Intensive coaching will be provided by the patient safety team at NHS Improvement, which runs the MNHSC., in how to develop improvement projects as they assess services, design and implement improvement plans.
The trust’s director of nursing, midwifery and quality and executive maternity safety champion, Deirdre Fowler, said: “This support from MNHSC is a great opportunity to make sure we are delivering the safest and best quality care. Over this year we’ll be developing improvement projects that can make a real difference to women and families using our services.
“Our team is also taking part in our local learning system for maternity and have already been learning from colleagues who took part in the MNHSC last year.
“This is an exciting time for maternity and neonatal services and the MNHSC is creating a social movement of quality improvers in maternity that SaTH is proud to be part of.”
