Last week NHS England announced the winning projects for the latest round of the Maternity Challenge Fund – all set to receive £50,000 to explore pioneering ways to use women’s and their partners’ feedback to drive improvement in maternity services.

Back in November 2016, maternity services across England were invited to put forward ground-breaking proposals on innovative ways of using patient feedback to improve services in order to attain funding through the Maternity Challenge Fund.

In the South, Gloucester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded £50,000 to progress its commendable Maternity Insight Project, due to start in the spring and will support improvements to maternity services by gaining a better understanding of women’s experiences of care.

The project is set to gain insight by using the existing patient feedback tool (Friends and Family Test) in an enhanced way – introducing a prompt for women to provide feedback about specific staff members who cared for them; collected via voice messaging and followed up with individual call backs where concerns are raised.

This innovative yet very efficient approach should be commended as it is set to bring about clear benefits to women, their families and staff. Not only will women and their families feel involved in shaping local services but their voices can influence future services.

The introduction of one-on-one calls to talk through any concerns also enables provision of a person-centred, caring service which reflects, learns and adapts to improve future delivery.

For staff, they are likely to feel more connected with the people they care for and their families, can gain recognition for excellent work, and access development opportunities as and when required.

The Maternity Transformation Programme seeks to achieve the vision set out in Better Births by bringing together a wide range of organisations to lead and deliver on a number of key areas. It also aims to support Local Maternity Systems and Maternity Clinical Networks.

In the South we are working hard, and will continue to do so, to ensure that women across the region benefit from the improvements to safety and choice outlined in Better Births before, during and after pregnancy.

Nigel Acheson, NHS England South Region Medical Director and the Senior Responsible Officer for the Maternity Transformation Programme (South)