£1m for maternity improvements in Lancashire and South Cumbria

Lancashire and South Cumbria Local Maternity and Newborn System (LMNS) has been awarded £1m of NHS funds to improve digital maternity services, helping to deliver a better experience for maternity service users and staff.

The money will fund a new electronic maternity record, joining up four hospital trusts, ensuring that women can access their own health records and information needed to make informed decisions.

The electronic maternity record will also allow maternity care providers access to accurate and up-to-date records wherever a pregnant woman presents for care.

Coralie Rogers, Clinical Lead for Digital Maternity, Lancashire and South Cumbria LMNS, said:

“This funding will help improve digital equity throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria, increasing choice and giving women and families using our services a better experience. It is a great step forward that clinical staff will be able to access full electronic health records, complete with all essential information to ensure that care is safe and of the same high quality, regardless of where women present for care.

“Digital tools are one of the ways we can improve safety, improve reporting, and share information with women and their families so they can feel more supported throughout their pregnancy and maternity journey.”

Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership is one of 128 successful bidders to the Digital Maternity Fund, which is given to NHS organisations across the country to improve infrastructure, technology systems and connectivity.  

Jules Gudgeon, National Digital Midwife Lead for Maternity – NHSEI, said:

“With this funding we are one step closer to interoperable record sharing, regardless of location or system used, for the benefit of women and pregnant people and the clinicians caring for them.”

Our collaborative bids were successful on four of the six available lots

• Developing interoperability: Building robust connections to ensure that that the maternity record is fully integrated into local systems and is able to communicate across boundaries supporting women’s choice whilst maintaining completeness of the information.
• Establishing infrastructure: Investing in essential hardware and connectivity to ensure that clinical staff have the right tools to access the healthcare records, essential for quality and safety and to provide ‘onsite’ digital access for women without their own devices or data.
• Data quality: Using digital midwifery expertise to continue to evolve the system, customising to local needs to improve choice, quality and safety. Building robust connections via a shared care record for all Trusts to have essential access current and previous maternity information
• Innovations in maternity care: Evidenced based online information improve accessibility, safety and empower pregnant women by providing reliable information to assist with choices about care for herself and her baby and Apps to access tailored, localised information, including interoperable home diabetes monitoring; and birth preparation.

Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership is the partnership of organisations working together to improve health and care services and help the 1.8million people in Lancashire and South Cumbria live longer, healthier lives.​​​​