Five trusts in the East Midlands have successfully applied for funding from East Midlands Academic Health Science Network (EMAHSN) to improve safety for mothers during pregnancy and ensure preterm babies get the best start in life.
Just over £40,000 has been allocated, with projects bidding for funding of between £5,000 and £10,000 to support an improvement project in 2022/23. Projects needed to focus safety improvement activity on the optimisation and stabilisation of preterm infants. This is one of the key aims of the Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme (MatNeoSIP), a national NHS programme, which is delivered in the region by the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (part of EMAHSN).
Michaela Thompson, Senior Improvement Lead with East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative, said:
‘I am really looking forward to working and supporting the teams as they develop their quality improvement projects. This funding is a great opportunity to drive forwards safety improvement work within maternity and neonatal services. The ongoing developments and learning will be shared at a future quarterly East Midlands Maternity and Neonatal Safety Network event.’
The successful projects are as follows:
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust: Increasing the proportion of babies born less than 34 weeks receiving maternal breast milk (MBM) within six hours after birth, and improving breastfeeding rates at discharge from hospital by 10% by March 2023.
University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust: Implementing a novel early-breast-milk-expression peer support programme for mothers of extremely and very preterm babies at UHL neonatal services.
University Hospitals Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust: The overall aim is to improve outcomes for all preterm infants whilst reducing unnecessary and potentially harmful treatments in those women who do not go on to give birth prematurely, guided by the National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) quality improvement toolkit.
United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust: Optimising pre-term multiple births – Twins Trust Maternity Engagement QI Project.
East Midlands Neonatal Operational Delivery Network (hosted by Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust): Implementing family integrated care education across the Operational Delivery Network.
The focus of the MatNeoSIP is on delivering a whole pathway approach to care, with an emphasis on health inequalities. Read more about the programme here, and the work of the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative.