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 several workstreams. These include:
- Governance
- Leadership and Culture
- Education and training
- Recruitment and retention
- Saving Babies Lives – care bundle v3
- Screening
- Estate and environment
- Infant feeding
- Ockenden and East Kent recommendation compliance
We also have a service user experience workstream, working in partnership with the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to continue listening and responding to service user voices.
Progress
Through this work, we have:
- Reduced midwifery vacancy rate from 22% to less than 5%
- Invested in 40 new midwife posts across the service
- Completed our Clinical Operating Model (COM) consultation and recruitment
- Increased the number of medical and midwifery leadership posts
- Formally approved a new maternity governance framework
- Implemented 97% of the national recommendations made by the Ockenden reports
- Worked with the MNVP to develop our communications with women and people and co-produce a number of service developments, including supporters staying overnight and a postnatal discharge information video.
In 2023, we achieved full compliance towards the Maternity Incentive Scheme year 5, and are on track to achieve full compliance for the year 6 programme (awaiting final outcome March 2025). The scheme 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.
Taking part in maternity research
Research involving the birthing population is flourishing at all four hospital sites at UHSussex. Our aim is to offer maternity service users the opportunity to participate in cutting edge studies that could drive progress in effective care, treatment or medication management.
Read more about the research taking place within maternity