We are committed to listening, learning and always improving. Our outcomes for pregnant women and birthing people and their babies are significantly better than national benchmark rates.
We want to ensure the best possible care for you and your baby during your pregnancy.
Our midwifery and obstetric teams have been working with the Maternity Safety Support Programme (MSSP) over the last few years and created a Maternity Improvement Plan focused on seven workstreams. These include:
- Governance
- Leadership and Culture
- Education and training
- Recruitment and retention
- Saving Babies Lives
- Screening
- Ockenden and East Kent recommendation compliance
We are also developing the patient experience workstream, working in partnership with the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to continue listening and responding to service user voices, as well as a workstream aiming to improve our estates.
Progress
Through this work, we have:
- Reduced midwifery vacancy rate from 22% to 11%, with further improvements planned
- Invested in 40 new midwife posts across the service
- Completed our Clinical Operating Model (COM) consultation and recruitment
- Formally approved a new maternity governance framework
- Worked with the MNVP to develop our communications with women and people and co-produce a number of service developments.
In 2023, we achieved full compliance towards the Maternity Incentive Scheme and are on track to achieve full compliance in 2024. The scheme, now in its sixth year, is an annual programme designed to enhance maternity safety within NHS Trusts.
According to recent national data from MBRRACE (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), UHSussex consistently performs better than both national and regional benchmarking rates for perinatal mortality (stillbirth and neonatal deaths). Read more about our maternity outcomes and key performance indicators, as disclosed from a recent freedom of information request.