Safer Maternity Care

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (MWL) has appointed our Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Governance, a Non-Executive Director, and our Clinical Director for Obstetrics and Gynaecology as our maternity safety champions.

All three members have direct access to the Trust Board and our Maternity Safety Improvement Plan will be tabled with the Board for approval.

In line with best practice, the Trust uses the Perinatal Mortality Tool to standardise perinatal mortality reviews held at the Trust. We have also made a commitment to take part in the National Maternity Quality Improvement Programme and report into the maternity services data set and other key data sets as soon as they become available.

The Trust is already an active member of the 'Sign up to Safety' initiative, making appropriate links with safety improvement programmes and the NHS Litigation Authority. Our maternity unit was an early adopter of NHS England's Saving Babies' Lives Safer Care Bundle and is an active member of the national evaluation programme that took place throughout 2017. We will use the NHS Improvement resource pack to help teams avoid unnecessary separation of mothers and babies.