The Maternity and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative aims to improve safety and outcomes of maternity and neonatal care by reducing unwarranted variation and providing a high quality healthcare experience for all women, babies and families. It also aims to reduce stillbirths, neonatal deaths and brain injuries.
The focus is on five main clinical aims (primary drivers):
- Increasing the proportion of smoke free pregnancies
- Improving the optimisation and stabilisation of the very preterm infant
- Improving detection and management of diabetes in pregnancy
- Improving the detection and management of neonatal hypoglycaemia
- Improving the early recognition and management of deterioration of either mother or baby during or soon after birth
There are five further secondary drivers:
- Creating the conditions for a culture of safety and continuous improvement
- Developing safe and highly reliable systems, processes and pathways of care
- Improving the experience of mothers, families and staff
- Learning from excellence and error or incidents
- Improving the quality of care through clinical excellence
Teams are encouraged to diagnose where their highest areas for improvement lie and to lead quality improvement projects locally using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) model for improvement.