In our latest blog Ellie Venton, Dorset CCG’s programme lead for Maternity Transformation/Better Births System Integration writes about how our new clinical maternity pathway will help improve the care and support for mum, baby and the family.
At Dorset LMS (Local Maternity System) we are very excited to be launching the Maternity pathway within the Dorset Care Record. The work was designed to support the new postnatal care pathway delivered as part of the NHS England national Better Births Early Adopter work.
The transfer of information between the Health Visitors and Midwives is key to supporting the mums journey from pregnancy into motherhood. The information exchanged between professionals include the mum’s social situation, smoking status, CO reading, any issues identified from the home visit, any referrals made to other agencies, red book discussions and current feeding status of the baby. These key pieces of information, amongst others, all help to improve the care and support to mum, baby and the family, including helping prepare for their new arrival.
The forms have been used for the past year on paper and have been very successful but by making them electronic means they can be attached to the mum’s record. This means that every clinician involved in the mum’s care can look at this information at a point in time. It also saves the clinician time inputting information which pre-populates form the mums Dorset Care Record. Every mum who self-refers will be enrolled on the pathway and allocated to a midwifery team and a health visiting team allowing notifications of completed forms to be directed to them automatically. Teams can view their women’s records and will easily be able to see if a form is outstanding and can follow this up with the relevant professional – meaning less missed contacts and a better care pathway for the family.
The joined up working between the teams in Dorset to come to this point has been very successful and a pleasure to be part of. This included Dorset County Hospital, Poole Hospital, Bournemouth Hospital, Dorset Healthcare and the Maternity Voices Partnership. It has led to some great discussions and improvements in communication across the services.