Why focus on Maternal and Infant Health and Care?
Maternity and newborn services are fundamental to the health of the population. They provide the first significant personal experience of healthcare and are considered the touchstone of an organisation’s quality of care (Department of Health 2010). The health and wellbeing of babies and of women are affected in the short, medium and long term by the outcomes of birth and postpartum experiences. Everyone experiences maternity services at some stage in their lives; each year, around 130,000 women and babies in the region will experience direct care, with indirect impact on partners and other family members. The effectiveness, quality and safety of maternity and neonatal services are dependent on multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral working. They are resource-intensive, and more than half of all NHS compensation payments relate to this area (NHS Information Centre 2009).
Maternal and newborn care has a strong evidence base and good national guidance to draw on. Yet at present maternal and newborn services and outcomes vary widely across the region, indicating varied quality of practice.
National and regional ambitions for the development of maternal and newborn services will only be delivered if best practice and innovative approaches are spread systematically and in a managed way throughout healthcare and education. The downturn in public finances makes this task even more important; improvements in quality can only be secured alongside improvements in productivity.
