Progress in working together (International Midwives Day)

The Maternity Transformation Programme in NW London, led by midwives, has been making improvements across NW London’s maternity services for the last five years.

We want commemorate this year’s International Midwives Day ‘100 years of progress’, by celebrating the programme’s success and introducing you to the maternity project managers. They are working on the ground in today’s maternity units across NW London; striving to improve standards and care for all new mothers and midwifery staff.

Over the last few years the team has closely collaborated to make changes and improvements, by supporting and learning from one another, breaking down barriers and listening to the feedback from women to shape a better service...

Our successes

• New standardised clinical guidelines embedded across all our maternity services –
• to provide the same safe standards of care for everyone.
• The award winning mum and baby app provides all women and families with access to the same clinical information through pregnancy and beyond.
• Digital care plans linked to the mum and baby app. Each individual has access to their care plan. Clinicians across our organisations can also see the same information.
• New - perinatal pelvic health service – a consultant, specialist physiotherapy and midwife support service helping with pelvic health problems during and after pregnancy.
• Continuity of care teams, to ensure everyone has a team and contact that knows them and their needs through pregnancy.
• Listening to and working with service users in all our maternity units to improve maternity services.
• Ensuring all women can access their contraceptive of choice prior to leaving the postnatal ward.

Meet our maternity programme managers

Abigail Green – linked with
Hillingdon Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

“I’ve been a midwife since 2015 and I’m currently on secondment to this role.

“Working as a midwife at Hillingdon has made it easy for me to build relationships, to discuss and help embed changes.

“Being part of a network with the other trusts and being transparent about what works and what has gone wrong has really helped in terms of learning and support for our unit.

“The project managers meet several times a week to discuss respective projects - to coordinate and share information. I run the maternity serious incident group and look at risk metrics to share learning and best practice.

“We have definitely seen improvements in maternity care since we have been working collaboratively across all our sites.”

Georgia Kontosorou - linked with
Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation

“I enjoy working in transformation as there are so many things we can learn from each other.

“I’ve been a digital midwife for many years at Chelsea and Westminster, finding tools to help decision making processes and to analyse data to improve outcomes. These are the skills I have brought to the NW London maternity transformation programme. I look for technology solutions and effective inter-operability services to improve access to information between our maternity departments.

“This also includes better dashboards so we can focus on the right things to improve safety and care. 

“The pandemic has helped digital transformation across maternity services, but we still work with people who would prefer to receive information about their care in paper form, so we have to strike the right balance.”

Chandrika Pisavadia  - linked with
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust

“I’ve been working in maternity services for 30 years, mainly in the community setting.

“This role has given me the opportunity to develop my skills and knowledge in many areas of the maternity services. 

“Achieving goals can be a challenge but the outcomes benefit many people across NW London. Producing community postnatal guidelines that are now used across all our services has been a particular achievement for me.

“Currently, I am working with Maternity Support Workers, helping with any training and development needs to ensure they are providing safe and effective care to women and babies.

“Another part of the role is to communicate with the clinical teams to ensure that they understand the rationale behind any changes and recommendations which have been put forward. This has been well received as often they were not aware.”

Elisa Iaschi – linked with
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

“This is a very interesting role with lots of potential. It’s a mix of strategy, project planning and meeting with the midwifery and clinical staff who work on the wards.

“I enjoy working with the Maternity Voices Partnership; a group of people who have used, or are using, maternity services. Their feedback, along with learning from other organisations, really helps us to work on and improve things that matter. We are always looking for more people to join us.

“Staff education and wellbeing is another area I lead on and we have been able to do more in terms of education sessions and peer learningby working together.

 “I really enjoy my work and it’s great to see the difference it makes to women using all of our maternity services.”

If you would like to contact the Maternity Transformation Team – email: maternity.nwl@nhs.net