Two royal colleges are to work together in a government-backed project to reduce brain injury in labour, it was announced today.
New processes will ensure that obstetrics departments have good and safe working cultures in the project to be led by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives.
£3 million is to be put towards the second phase of the programme, the government announced today. The national objective is to halve the rate of brain injury at birth by 2025.
The colleges developed toolkits to support departments in a first phase and these will now be applied nationally.
A childbirth safety culture toolkit will ensure hospitals as a whole learn from good practice and mistakes while there will also be new national tools to monitor and identify deterioration of health during childbirth.
Training for midwives and doctors will have a new focus on teamwork, cooperation and positive working relationships.
RCOG president Dr Edward Morris said: “By drawing on expertise from across the health sector and listening to the experiences of women and their families, we are developing tools to support maternity units in providing the best possible care to pregnant women and their babies and establish clear processes for effective fetal monitoring.
“Any event of avoidable brain injury is tragic, for the newborn, for the family, and for the midwives and obstetricians involved. All maternity staff want to ensure that both mother and baby have the best possible outcomes. The development of these approaches to monitor babies is key to supporting maternity staff to safely deliver babies.”
* The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence yesterday announced new guidance on inducing labour in the 41st week of pregnancy. It had proposed to recommend induction but now advises that this should be discussed with women, setting out the benefits and disadvantages.
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