Maternity improvement plan: women centred care

We want you to have a good experience of our care, from your antenatal appointments, through your delivery, to after the birth of your baby.

To do that, we’re working to develop a culture and processes that put you and your needs first.

We have

  • Extensively refurbished our maternity department so that it offers a better environment for you and your family during your stay with us.
  • Started work on our new maternity strategy. We will talk to a wide range of people who use our service to make sure that the strategy reflects your needs.
  • Begun to analyse our electronic, paper and verbal communication with service users who don’t speak English as a first language so that we can understand more about where we need to improve.
  • Started a new plan for our antenatal classes, which were moved online during the pandemic.

We will

  • Review how well our continuity of care pathway works for you. This is a pathway which means that you see one midwife for the whole duration of your pregnancy.
  • Work with our Maternity Voices Partnership to make sure that your voices inform all developments that happen within the service.
  • Create new opportunities for you to be involved with the service, so it’s easier for you to talk to us about what you need and want when you need to use it.
  • Improve the time it takes us to respond to complaints (without affecting the quality and transparency of the complaint investigation).
  • Fully audit and update the way in which we provide information for women who don’t speak English as a first language, including our care pathways
  • Continue to audit our team’s compliance with Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding and Mental Capacity Act training.