In 2018, we ran a survey across Bucks, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West to find out what women thought of their maternity care.
Why did we do the project?
The Better Births strategy recommended that women should be offered a personalised care plan. This plan will give women the option to record more about their choices and what is important to them. It will cover the time while women are pregnant, during the birth of their baby and for a short time after.
What did we do?
We worked with Healthwatch Oxfordshire, Healthwatch Reading, Healthwatch Wokingham Borough, and Healthwatch West Berkshire to speak to women who had been pregnant or had a baby between Jan 2015 and Dec 2018. We asked about:
- their experiences of making choices about maternity care
- what the personalised care plan should include
- what the plan should look like
We got 1400 responses through the survey. We also visited six groups to hear views from those who were unlikely to have responded to the survey. We have summarised what people from across the region told us in our main report and the summary.
We also looked more closely at the feedback from women who had used Bucks maternity services in this new report. We shared our findings and recommendations based on this feedback with Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. You can see our report and their response below. We are pleased that the findings have already been presented to the wider multidisciplinary team so that everyone is aware of the feedback from women.
The response also mentioned that the ‘Mum and Baby’ app will launch in January 2020. This will be a digital personalised care plan available to all women. There’s more information on the BHT website (https://www.buckshealthcare.nhs.uk/birthchoices/mum-and-baby-app.htm). If you’ve used the app please tell us what you think.
Delivering Better Births Summary Report
Delivering Better Births Full Report
Delivering Better Births – Buckinghamshire Report
Response to Delivering Better Births from Bucks Healthcare Trust
