Midwives at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust have received £40,000 from Health Education England to support the development of a new programme of multidisciplinary training in Maternity Services.
The training will be delivered in-house by the Trust’s Maternity Department. Each element of the programme will incorporate acquisition of knowledge and its application through team work. The effect of human factors on performance of the individual and the team will be an underlying principle throughout. 
Maternity Services at the Trust provide care for mums-to-be and their baby from the start of their pregnancy through the birth and beyond, offering support, advice and information to help them through this exciting time.
Kathy McClune, Professional Development Midwife at HDFT, said: “We are committed to delivering high quality, safe care to the mothers and babies in our care. This financial award will enable us to provide staff with extra training above what they already receive. Staff will be able to attend a variety of training events including emergency skills training, leadership and teamwork workshops and a conference on breech birth.
“Our focus is very much on working together and we are particularly excited to be bringing midwives, obstetricians and GPs together in June for a training day on perinatal mental health.”
Health Education England’s Maternity Safety Training Fund programme has distributed over £8m across all NHS trusts with maternity services in England, to deliver training to improve maternity safety.
136 NHS trusts, including all 134 acute trusts with maternity units, have now received funding to implement packages of multi-disciplinary training, focussing on the key patient safety improvement areas of maternity team leadership, multi-professional team working and communication, human factors training, fetal growth and monitoring, plus midwifery, obstetric and CTG skills and drills.
Lisa Bayliss-Pratt, HEE Director of Nursing said: “Trusts were invited to apply for funding in 2016 and the response from service providers and partners in applying to make maternity services safer through education and training has been excellent, as well as the response from training providers to meet demand for course places. Thank you to all applicants and regional experts who worked hard to prepare and assess training plans. I am delighted that all NHS maternity trusts have been awarded an allocation from the fund to progress their training and safety improvements, helping to make maternity services safer for mothers and babies, and enhance their care experience.”
Every NHS trust receiving funding has committed to key actions to improve safety, including developing maternity safety improvement plans to be approved and monitored by trust boards, and appointing maternity safety champions. Trusts will also be linking in with quality and safety improvement programmes and resources across the NHS.
Training programmes are due to be completed by March 2018 and HEE will commission an independent evaluation to assess how NHS trusts have improved quality and safety within maternity services and the wider impact for mothers and babies, families, and the maternity workforce.
Working with the national Maternity Transformation Programme partners, HEE is supporting the multi-professional training recommendations from the 2016 National Maternity Review report: ‘Better Births – Improving outcomes for maternity services in England’ and ensuring maternity safety education and training materials are available for maternity units across England.
ENDS
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Paul Widdowfield, Communications and Marketing Manager, [email protected] and 01423 557470.
Notes to editors: Maternity Safety Training Commitments: Every NHS trust receiving funding must:
- Appoint obstetric and maternity safety champions with a direct link from frontline to board level.
- Use the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool to standardise perinatal mortality reviews (once available).
- Report into the maternity services data set and other key data sets by 2018, prioritising early submission where possible.
- Take part in the National Maternity Quality Improvement programme (once available).
- Make appropriate links with safety improvement programmes run by Sign up to Safety and NHS Litigation Authority.
- Use the NHS Improvement resource pack to help teams avoid unnecessary separation of mother and babies (once available).
- Implement (at least 2 of the 4 elements of) the NHS England Saving Babies’ Lives Safer Care Bundle.
- Develop a maternity safety improvement plan, approved at board level.