Over the past year a big focus for our maternity teams has been about closing the gap in outcomes and improving experience for the most vulnerable women in our communities. In November we shared in CHFT News how the new inequalities flag on patient records is helping to consistently identify where women may need something different in their care.

As well as the inequalities flag there are many other ways in which maternity colleagues are making sure that all pregnant women and families we care for have equitable access to services.

One colleague who has been at the heart of making sure we can identify women with vulnerabilities as early in pregnancy as possible is our Project Manager for Health Inequalities, Claudia De’Vries. Claudia says: “We have cohorts of vulnerable women in our patient population who we know either don’t access support during their maternity journey or could do with some additional support to help them get the best outcomes. We knew that a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t work so the maternity teams have been looking at what range of initiatives we could bring in to have the biggest impact.

“Adding the inequalities flag in the patient record has been really helpful and we are now looking at how we can develop its use even further. For example, when a woman flags in the top 20% for vulnerability, we want to look at what offer we can put in place within the community. In the next few months we are also planning to progress to using the flag on the Athena system for continuity and wider impact. 

"We are also looking at a Maternity Assessment Centre (MAC) Open Access Pass to vulnerable women which is already offered to women where having a phone call could be challenging.”

A lot of work has also been done in partnership with NHS West Yorkshire ICB so that it makes a far-reaching impact on communities across West Yorkshire, as primary care is usually the first point of contact for many pregnant women following a positive test. Outreach work into community settings has also looked at how maternity messages can be delivered in a more culturally appropriate way and through trusted channels. This has included working with mosque leaders to deliver key maternity messages in faith settings.

To encourage women to get in touch with their midwife if something doesn’t feel right a new video has been filmed about reduced fetal movement. The idea for the video was the outcome of engagement which identified that women who were born outside the UK were less likely to get in touch with their midwife if they had concerns about the wellbeing of their baby. The video features one of our CHFT patients and addresses common misconceptions around pregnancy and baby loss, particularly within non-English speaking communities. It was shaped by local feedback and is available in multiple languages for accessibility and cultural relevance.

Other ways to use digital are also helping reduce health inequalities, such as the JanamApp, which is a multilingual app that supports South Asian women through their whole maternity journey. It provides trusted information in seven languages to help improve engagement with maternity services.

Maternity services are also looking at other means of support such as introducing a Maternity Befriender Role. This role would be there to support those most vulnerable to access and navigate health and care services. They are also trialling the use of bus passes to see if the offer of free travel helps improve access to maternity services.

Other work has included updating the information available on the ward to support women and families and more training with maternity colleagues around cultural understanding.

Director of Midwifery and Women's Services, Gemma Puckett, says: “By giving pregnant women and their babies more equitable access to maternity care, we know we can really make a big impact on reducing chances of complications in pregnancy and birth and help give babies the best start in life.

“We continuously listen to the voices of our patients and use this to improve the service we offer. Just one recent example is just how important overnight visiting for birth partners is. So, early this year we will be improving our visiting services across maternity to enable overnight stays for one birth partner.

“We can already see how some of the initiatives we have bought in are making a big difference to our women and families. 

“Thank you to our maternity colleagues who have been really committed to reducing health inequalities and supporting our most vulnerable patients.”

You can also see a summary of the impact the maternity team have made over the last year in the image attached.