What has been happening in maternity this week?

NICE maternity impact report published

The UK National institute for health and care excellence (NICE) has published a report on how NICE guidance can contribute to improvements in safety and personalisation of maternity care. Including recommendations on smoking in pregnancy, diabetes in pregnancy, choice of birth setting & involvement in decisions about care. The full report is available here

​15 steps for Maternity Toolkit

NHS England has launch a tool kit to help observe, understand and improve service users experience of local maternity care. It covers several areas:

• Welcoming and informative
• Safe & clean
• Friendly and personal
• Organised and calm

The toolkit provides guidance on how to conduct the observations and creating action plans to recognise positive areas and areas for improvement. It encourages involvement of service users, clinicians and board members. 

How I saved my daughter from a medical error
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This article written by a physician highlights an incident involving his 4 day old daughter. He provides advice to parents when visiting hospital including being prepared providing an accurate medical history, ask questions and be heard.