The PreCiSSIon (Preventing Caesarean Birth Surgical Site Infection across a region) project has been shortlisted in two categories, Data-Driven Transformation and Patient Safety, at the HSJ Awards 2025. This recognition highlights our collaboration with Cemplicity and maternity units across the West of England to implement digital surveillance and reduce surgical site infections (SSI) following caesarean birth.
Now in its 45th year, the HSJ Awards remains the UK’s most prestigious celebration of healthcare excellence. These awards honour individuals and organisations whose innovative work is shaping a better, more sustainable NHS.
Being shortlisted is a reflection of Health Innovation West of England’s commitment to improving patient outcomes through digital transformation. Lesley Jordan, clinical lead for PreCiSSIon, said: “We are honoured to be shortlisted twice. This recognition reflects the dedication of our team and their relentless pursuit of improvements that truly make a difference in patient care.”
SSI accounts for 14.5% of all hospital-acquired infections in the UK. It has a significant effect on a patient’s recovery from surgery and may require readmission and further surgery. For mothers having a caesarean birth it also affects their ability to look after their newborn baby, affects bonding and can increase complication in future caesareans. Most SSI present after discharge, making accurate measurement challenging. The standard approach uses patient-reported outcomes (PROMs) via the validated Public Health England (PHE) questionnaire 30 days post-procedure.
As Caesarean birth is common and most hospitals have over 100 caesarean births each month, they do not have the capacity to monitor post-discharge SSI rates by post or phone, as both are labour-intensive. The PreCiSSIon project implemented digital surveillance across the region delivering the PHE questionnaire via SMS or email to all mothers 30 days after their caesarean birth. This was achieved in collaboration with Cemplicity, a company specialising in digital collection of PROMs and PREMs (Patient Reported Experience Measures).
The automated system reduces administrative burden, eliminates manual errors, and streamlines data collection. Alongside surveillance, the team codesigned a patient information leaflet and post-operative wound care video and partnered with Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnerships to improve equity in data collection by including ethnicity questions. The digital questionnaire allows mothers to provide written feedback, offering valuable insight into their experience. AI tools analyse this feedback to identify trends and areas for improvement.
Once reliable surveillance was in place, teams introduced a standardised care bundle to reduce infection risk. This is now reliably delivered in all five trusts, significantly reducing variation in SSI rates across the region and has shown a reduction in SSI rates. By March 2025 , the project has used data from over 9000 mothers to build a robust understanding of SSI risk factors, allowing for implementation and tracking of targeted interventions, specific to those with highest risk. By March 2025 the project has achieved a 25% reduction in SSI rates across the region which can be equated to saving 360 mothers from having an SSI and a cost saving of between £720k and £1.3m.
Winners of the Data-Driven Transformation and Patient Safety awards will be announced at the HSJ Awards ceremony on 20 November 2025.
Learn more about the PreCiSSIon project.
Posted on September 4, 2025
