Project

Maternity and neonatal

Focus areas:
Locality:
Wessex
Compilation of images of people working in health and social care

Building on the work of previous years, the patient safety collaboratives are being commissioned by the National Patient Safety Team to support maternity and neonatal safety in preterm optimisation, recognition and management of deterioration and providing perinatal teams with culture and leadership support.

Compilation of images of people working in health and social care

Preterm Optimisation and Deterioration Programme

In alignment with the national ambitions outlined in Better Births and Safer Maternity Care, this programme is committed to significantly improving outcomes for mothers and babies across England. By 2025, it aims to halve the rates of maternal and neonatal deaths, stillbirths, and brain injuries occurring during or shortly after birth, and to reduce the national preterm birth rate from 8% to 6%.

At its core, the programme seeks to enhance the safety, consistency, and quality of maternal and neonatal care. It focuses on reducing unwarranted variation and ensuring that every woman, baby, and family receives a high-quality healthcare experience, regardless of location or circumstances.

Our programme objectives are to:

  • enhance the optimisation and stabilisation of preterm infants
  • strengthen the prevention, identification, escalation, and response (PIER) to maternal and neonatal deterioration
  • align efforts with the three-year Maternity and Neonatal Plan to ensure cohesive and strategic implementation.

Perinatal Culture and Leadership Programme (PCLP)

The PCLP is designed to empower perinatal leaders to drive meaningful change by fostering a culture rooted in compassion, inclusivity, and continuous improvement. It recognises that a positive safety culture is essential to delivering high-quality care and improving outcomes for women, babies, and families.

By supporting leadership teams to cultivate psychologically safe, collaborative, and supportive environments, the programme aims to embed cultural transformation into everyday practice.

Our programme objectives are to:

  • develop and sustain a perinatal approach to the PCLP across all relevant settings
  • maintain active engagement of Quad and change teams to transition from cultural analysis to impactful action
  • expand and support the role of the Culture Coach, including the growth of the national Culture Coach Community of Practice led by NHS England
  • integrate the PCLP with other perinatal initiatives, particularly those focused on equality, diversity, and inclusion, to enhance safety culture
  • advance existing learning networks and communities of practice into robust regional learning systems
  • promote and facilitate the spread of the MOMENTS framework
  • design and implement a communications strategy to effectively share key messages and demonstrate the impact of the PCLP.

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