CASE STUDY
Overview
System‑wide innovation in maternity care
Health Innovation Wessex has been working to improve how pregnant women in Hampshire are assessed and directed to appropriate care. Our industry, patient safety, innovation adoption and insight teams have worked closely together to help the our system partners to enhance the flow, satisfaction and safety of the patient pathway.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Maternity and Neonatal System (HIOW LMNS) have developed and implemented an innovative model of maternity triage incorporating an app called Healthier Together (HT app) to signpost families to services, and a 24 hour centralised maternity triage line staffed by midwives from four maternity trusts. The Maternity Triage Line (MTL) was implemented in November 2022 across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and is operated from South Central Ambulance Service. The midwives worked on the maternity triage line as well as continuing to work in their local trusts
The system cares for pregnant women with approximately 17,000 pregnancies a year across four trusts and five sites (Basingstoke, Winchester, Isle of Wight, Southampton and Portsmouth).
Patient Impact
42,701
Between November 2022 and September 2025, 42,701 women had registered on to the app and benefited from the consistent information.
94%
Over 94% of women reported satisfaction with using the Healthier Together app.
95%
95% of staff agreed the Maternity Triage Line and Healthier Together app provides equity of access to all needing maternity care.
Service user
“My daughter used the app yesterday and found it perfect, within the hour she was admitted to the day assessment unit and treated for an infection, cannot praise the staff enough for their hard work, I know this app takes the pressure off them slightly.”
Service user
Service user
“Lots of useful information delivered to me in a timely manner. So glad to have this for my pregnancy - it has put my mind at rest twice so far (the joys of being an anxious pregnant lady!) Thank you!”
Service user
Staff member
“It certainly is helpful that it has cut down on the amount of triaging that we have to do ourselves because actually the phone calls… are really disruptive. So that’s a real positive about it.”
Staff member
The challenge
The new maternity triage pathway was introduced across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to address challenges experienced by staff and women accessing prenatal and postnatal care.
The previous system often left women uncertain about who to contact and when, with calls being directed variously to the triage unit, bleep holders, or community midwives. This lack of clarity created confusion and inconsistency in the patient journey.
For staff, the volume and nature of calls posed significant challenges. Midwives working clinically in the triage unit were frequently interrupted by incoming calls, diverting their attention from direct patient care. In some cases, calls were answered by staff unfamiliar with triage processes, leading to inconsistencies in the advice provided.
Timeliness was another concern. High clinical demand within the triage unit meant that calls were not always answered promptly, leaving women without the reassurance or guidance they needed. Collectively, these issues highlighted the need for a more streamlined, reliable, and patient‑centred approach.
The introduction of the new pathway was designed to resolve these problems, ensuring clearer communication channels, reducing distractions for clinical staff, and delivering consistent, timely advice to women across the region.
About the Healthier Together (HT) app
The Healthier Together app provides information on how to manage pregnancy symptoms and signposts the woman to different categories of help with advice coded into red (emergency), amber (Contact triage line), or green (self-care or pharmacy) categories. The MTL midwives can access the online portal BadgerNet, to access digital maternity records, review patient data and update with additional information.
How we supported
• Our Industry and Innovation team has been involved since 2019, supporting the Healthier Together app getting to market. Cenigma worked alongside clinical leads and service users to design the Healthier Together app ensuring it accurately reflects clinical signposting with easy to use functionality.
“Health Innovation Wessex has been an invaluable partner in advancing the Healthier Together app. Their ongoing support, insight and expertise have helped us refine our approach, measure its impact on families and clinicians and evidence its value to commissioners.” Ahmad Chughtai, Managing Partner at Cenigma (Healthier Together).
• Wessex Patient Safety Collaborative has supported the local system through shared clinical networks to standardise antenatal pathways of care and embed good practice, as highlighted through the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ good practice paper Maternity Triage (Good Practice Paper No. 17) | RCOG.
• Our Innovation Adoption team has shared best practice and supported the spread of this triage model across neighbouring integrated care boards (ICBs).
• The Maternity Triage Line has been independently evaluated by the Health Innovation Wessex Insight team.
Patient Safety
System collaboration - The system level triage model is underpinned by shared antenatal care pathways which Health Innovation Wessex have been supporting since 2016. Standardised pathways reduce variations in practice and improve patient safety. These shared antenatal care pathways are integral to a system level triage service as they ensure consistency of advice and treatment, irrespective of where the woman is from and which health care professionals care for her. This triage model has been adapted to work without shared pathways, supporting trust specific triage and a local phone number.
Embedding good practice - We have supported the maternity triage network to embed good practice recommendations and audit processes. The maternity triage network has also embedded BSOTS (Birmingham Symptom-specific Obstetric Triage System), a clinical guideline designed for maternity triage. This is a separate triage initiative within the hospital, designed to improve the care of pregnant women by ensuring timely, consistent assessment according to clinical urgency.
Clinical impact
PPIE
This is a co-produced pathway with service users and received excellent engagement from the Maternity and Neonatal Voice Partnership (MNVP). The MNVP is an independent group of service users who provided feedback and suggestions on service modelling, accessibility and language.
Service users formed an integral part of the working group when scoping the new triage service. They contributed to accessibility features and ensured appropriate and consistent language was used in all patient facing information.
Scalability and next steps
This is a scalable project with interest from many other maternity regions. Plans are underway to implement this model across Dorset LMNS and Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB (BSW). There have also been discussions scoping a pan-Wales approach to maternity triage which replicates this service, and preliminary meetings with other interested trusts.
How can we help you?
If you’d like to get in touch please
email enquiries@hiwessex.net
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