James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Maternity Service has demonstrated that, in the fifth year of the Maternity Incentive Scheme, it has achieved all ten of the ten standards set by the NHS England Scheme.
The Maternity Incentive Scheme provides a framework for Maternity Services to demonstrate how they meet the required standards of safety and care, and requires evidence of progress across a range of quality measures including medical and midwifery workforce levels to ensure we have the right staff in place on every shift.
The scheme also requires the Trust to evidence that we work closely on the development of the services with our families and service users. This is achieved in partnership with our local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP).
This is a significant achievement for the Trust, and provides the foundations that underpin the progress of the hospital’s Maternity Improvement Plan to transform the safety and quality of maternity services over the coming years, and after the Trust’s maternity services were rated ‘inadequate’ in two domains (safe and well-led) by the Care Quality Commission in their inspection in January 2023.
Achieving all ten safety actions recognises the significant levels of progress that the James Paget’s maternity service has made in being able to evidence safe, high-quality care for mothers and birthing people in Great Yarmouth and Waveney, including providing support for mothers and families that have additional health, accessibility or safeguarding needs.
The safety actions also monitor relationships between maternity and neonatal teams, with a specific actions focusing on transitional care and investigations into admissions into neonatal units as we strive to minimise separation between mother and baby in those important early hours of life.
To support this, we have embedded medical-led multi professional reviews for all term babies admitted to the Neonatal Unit, and all Maternity incidents impacting on the care of the baby.
The Trust’s Maternity service has begun work on year six of the Maternity Incentive Scheme, which has additional elements to monitor safety and improvement, including further collaborative work with the Neonatal Unit, further support for those who are on consultant led pregnancy pathways, and how we can improve the care for women and birthing people with diabetes to optimise the outcome for the baby.