Current programmes
The College's activities in maternity safety to date, include our current work with the RCM and The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute at the University of Cambridge on the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth project. The ABC programme aims to support maternity services to improve clinical practice of two significant contributors to avoidable brain injury in childbirth: detection and response to suspected intrapartum fetal deterioration and management of the obstetric emergency of impacted fetal head at caesarean section.
The Tommy’s National Centre for Maternity Improvement is an alliance with the RCM and the National charity Tommy's. The alliance has developed a digital clinical decision tool that is used by maternity care professionals and women, to help identify those pregnant women who are most at risk of giving birth prematurely or of developing pregnancy complications that can lead to stillbirth.
The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA) rapid quarterly reporting presents timely data on care practices and maternity outcomes in NHS hospitals in England. It is designed to support service improvement; to provide information to women and families on results in their local NHS hospital; and to allow evaluation of national trends.
The RCOG’s new workforce planning tool aims to assist how maternity units calculate their medical staffing requirements, to better support families and babies. The 2022 Workforce Report gives an overview of where we are now whilst also looking to the future and what we can achieve. The report focuses on five key themes: workforce planning, building learning and supportive environments in O&G, flexible working, remote and rural working and multi-professional team working. This report can be downloaded here.
Previous programmes
Each Baby Counts (2015-2018) was the RCOG’s national quality improvement programme to reduce the number of babies who die or are left severely disabled as a result of incidents during term labour. This was followed by Each Baby Counts + Learn & Support which was a joint initiative with the RCM to help improve maternity care in England, by providing a structured programme for quality improvement. Toolkits have been developed for change management, safety thinking and escalation.
All of this work has and will continue to involve the Colleges Women’s Network as partners in this vision. The College values and champions the Women’s network who play an integral part of the Colleges work in supporting the best in women’s health care through advocacy and campaigning, so that doctors are equipped to do the best job possible for women.