Postnatal

Introduction

The overarching aim of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Local Maternity and Newborn Alliance is to provide maternity services which are safe, personalised, kind, professional and family friendly. Every woman or birthing person will have access to information and better conversations with a known midwife to understand the choices they have, to ensure the best care.

The members who make up the Postnatal workstream include representatives from each of the provider trusts, public health management, representatives from specialist tertiary centres (Alderhey Children’s Hospital) and Maternity voice partnership (representing service user input.

Working in co-production and collaboratively, our priorities include ways to improve women’s experiences of Postnatal care Services (Measured via a variety of routes, including the Care Quality Commission National Maternity survey 2021 | Care Quality Commission (cqc.org.uk), ensuring that they have choices in the care they receive.

Some of the improvements and transformation projects that are overseen by this workstream are:

Transitional care (working in collaboration with the North West Neonatal Operational Delivery Network) Ensuring transitional care services are in place to minimise separation of mothers and their babies and to support the recommendations made in the Avoiding Term Admissions into Neonatal units Programme NHS England » Preventing avoidable admissions of full-term babies

Postnatal Discharge to Community and Health Visiting: Improving quality of care through effective transition of information and collaborative practice between midwifery and health visiting services (including clinical staff and managers) and service commissioners working withing the LMS.

Postnatal Visiting Policies – An Indepth Post-Covid review of visiting policies with a view to developing a standardised approach to visiting in maternity settings across the LMS.

Perinatal Pelvic Health Services – Implementation and development of pelvic health services across all Trust providers including the implementation of robust data collection and care outcomes. Link here to Pelvic Health page

Bereavement Services and Support – Ensuring each maternity and neonatal unit have access to staff members trained in Bereavement care.