Home Page

We know that the culture of our team has a huge impact on the care we offer you.

We are committed to creating a warm and supportive team environment, where each one of our colleagues feels confident and able to achieve their full potential.

• Brought new leaders into the service, including a new Divisional Clinical Director, and Divisional General Manager. We are also recruiting for a new Director of Midwifery.
• Held five ‘big conversation’ events, with further events planned, offering the team a chance to come together and make further suggestions about how we can improve. We use a confidential app for feedback during these events, so team members can speak up with total confidence.
• Set clear standards for behaviour within the team, including making it clear that we will not tolerate bullying or harassment of any kind.
• Included our HEART values in all our key workforce documentation, setting the tone for the way in which we work.
• Commissioned an independent company specialising in organisational development to work closely with the service.
• Reviewed and refreshed our risk and governance processes to make sure that they are working as effectively as possible and support good partnership working with our colleagues across the NHS.
• Launched a new training programme for the whole team which not only rigorously addresses key clinical safety issues but also generates a culture of working and training together
• Refreshed our audit programme to clearly examine whether our wider improvements are working as expected.
• Arranged for our maternity champions to meet each month with our Board champions for maternity.
• Reviewed our midwifery staffing levels and confirmed that we are currently in line with Birthrate Plus recommendations.

• Introduce a dedicated and independent Freedom to Speak Up Champions for the maternity service to increase awareness and access to our six Freedom to Speak Up Guardians.
• Agree a behavioural framework that reflects our HEART values, in partnership with the whole team, as well as an accountability and assurance framework for and with our midwives.
• Complete a review of equality, diversity and inclusion within the service.
• Appoint a lead midwife for cultural diversity to support us in offering culturally appropriate care for the people who use our service, in line with upcoming national recommendations.
• Continue to review our midwifery staffing levels against Birthrate Plus recommendations, to make sure we are performing ongoing monitoring of this important aspect of the service.
• Work closely with partners such as Health Education England on further developing our training programmes and cultural activities.
• Develop a new career development strategy for the service
• Update our training and induction policy
• Review all our training to make sure that it represents best practice.
• Improve the pastoral support available to our junior doctors.