University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust has secured £65,000 in funding from NHS England for an innovative new project which will use patient feedback to help make improvements across its maternity services.
The Trust was successful in its bid for funding from the Maternity Experience Challenge Fund.
The fund was created by NHS England at the request of Ben Gummer, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health whose portfolio includes improvement initiatives such as the NHS ‘Friends and Family Test’ and other insight work which involves patient feedback.
Just one of three trusts across the country to be awarded funding from the Maternity Experience Challenge Fund, the Trust will use the money to develop an innovative training package for staff describing how communication, both good and bad, impacts on those women and families that use its services.
This training package will be developed through patient feedback and the involvement of families, real stories and experiences.
Sue Smith, Executive Chief Nurse, UHMBT, said: “We are delighted that we have been awarded the funding from the Maternity Experience Challenge Fund.
"This project will develop a much more intense and radical approach to addressing negative patient experience, and will help us develop cultural change in communication across maternity teams at UHMBT.
“We will start this exciting piece of work over the coming months, and I’m confident that it will make an important contribution to our ongoing work to put women and their families at the centre of care and listening to their feedback.”
Judges selected UHMBT’s winning entry from 64 entries.
The other two winning entries were The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust and Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.