A midwife’s view on patient safety: From birth to beyond
Blog article
Patient safety from the start!’ — This powerful slogan defines the focus of this year’s World Patient Safety Day, shining a vital spotlight on ensuring safe care for newborns and children. Led by the World Health Organization (WHO), this year’s campaign is a global call for urgent and united action to eliminate avoidable harm in…
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Prioritising maternal and child safety: A lifelong commitment
Blog article
Each year on World Patient Safety Day, the global community comes together to shine a light on a vital issue that impacts millions. In 2025, the focus turns to one of the most vulnerable populations: newborns and children. With the powerful slogan ‘Patient safety from the start!’, this year’s campaign, led by the World Health…
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Black Maternity Matters statement: national investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services
News
The Black Maternity Matters collaborative welcomes the government’s announcement of a rapid review into maternal and neonatal culture and safety, and particularly the focus on tackling inequalities in care for Black, Asian, and other underserved communities. Like the wider community working to end harm, poor outcomes and trauma for women, families, and babies racialised as…
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Why safety culture needs more than policies
Blog article
In this new blog post, Gill Travers reflects on how integrating the MOMENTS framework into the Midwifery programme at the University of the West of England (UWE) is encouraging students to reimagine safety culture. Moments that matter: embedding the MOMENTS Framework into midwifery education at UWE In the heart of the UWE’s Year 2 Pre-Registration…
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Evaluation highlights potential of digital breastfeeding support tool in NHS pilot
News
A recent real-world evaluation with NHS teams in Gloucestershire has found an app developed in the West Country is a promising digital tool for providing breastfeeding support. Despite evidence that breastfeeding benefits both babies and their mothers, the rates of breastfeeding in western countries like the UK have been low. Smartphone apps are increasingly being…
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Breaking down barriers for safer systems: a day of inspiration, innovation and insight
Blog article
In this blog, Jenn Garner and Ann Remmers report on our recent regional learning event, bringing together maternity and neonatal colleagues from across the region. On Wednesday 30 April, we were delighted to welcome colleagues from trusts across the West of England to the regional learning event for our Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programmes…
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Evaluation shows Black Maternity Matters is increasing the knowledge, skills and confidence of maternity and neonatal staff
News
An evaluation of the second training cohort of Black Maternity Matters demonstrates the programme has successfully helped maternity and neonatal staff in the West of England to increase their knowledge, skills and confidence in both understanding the impacts of racism and how it penetrates healthcare institutions. Black women in the UK remain more likely to…
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New research reinforces impact of cerebral palsy prevention programme PReCePT
News
Evidence for the impact of our programme to increase the use of magnesium sulphate, a £5 injection that helps prevent cerebral palsy in premature babies, has been strengthened by a new study published in BMJ Quality and Safety. The use of magnesium sulphate to prevent cerebral palsy has been recommended by NICE since 2015. Although…
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“Deeply affirming” – Black Maternity Matters collaborative celebrates winning national award
News
Members of the Black Maternity Matters collaborative are celebrating after scooping the award for ‘Community Project Impact’ at the prestigious Black Maternal Health Awards UK 2025. Held in London on Saturday 22 March to celebrate excellence across maternal healthcare, The Black Maternal Health Awards were hosted by The Motherhood Group. Black women in the UK remain…
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PreCiSSIon shortlisted for an HSJ Digital Award
News
Our PreCiSSIon (Preventing Caesarean Birth Surgical Site Infection across a region) project has been shortlisted in the category of ‘Driving Change through Data and Analytics’ in the HSJ Digital Awards 2025 for our work with Cemplicity and the maternity units across the West of England to reduce the impact of surgical site infections (SSI) following caesarean birth. This year marks…
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