St George’s wins £10,000 grant for maternity theatres project
A new maternity project at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded a £10,000 grant by the Health Innovation Network (HIN) for South West London.
The project, led by Consultant Anaesthetist Dr Emma Evans, will take place over the next year and is a collaboration between maternity staff and women who have had a baby in theatre.
Dr Evans said: “Women who have an operative delivery can tend to have a poorer experience compared to women who give birth in a midwife-led delivery room. This is especially the case if the decision to deliver in theatre has been made late in pregnancy or during labour.
“The sudden move from midwifery care to the more sterile world of the operating theatres can change the mother’s and family’s entire birthing experience.”
Experience based co-design
The new project aims to use experience based co-design (EBCD) methodology to explore and improve the experience of birth in theatre for both families and staff. EBCD is an approach that enables staff and patients to work in partnership to enhance the care that is needed to support a positive experience of operative birth.
Dr Evans added: “Clinical staff are focused on providing the best possible care to patients, but sometimes we don’t always see things through the eyes of the patient and their family. We hope this project will help us identify areas that could be improved that we may never have thought of before.”
The project is in partnership with Point of Care Foundation – an independent charity that works to humanise healthcare.
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