It is a year since the publication of the final Ockenden Report and teams in maternity services at SaTH are making strong progress on the delivery of their 210 actions, putting them ahead of their projected position at this point. Alongside this, the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle and many other vital pieces of work are being continued with diligence by staff whilst they also provide personalised care for the thousands of women and families who choose to have their babies at the Trust every year.

Improvements include:

• A Birth Preferences Card which has been co-produced with the Maternity Voices Partnership Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin to enable service users to discuss and amend their preferences with their care team throughout pregnancy and into labour.
• Improved management of birth options for women and associated risk management, including the introduction of birth option clinics and review of birthing plans/preferences at every contact and a named consultant for ‘high risk’ pregnancies.
• The Trust has invested in a further eight consultant obstetricians, which now enables on-site consultant obstetrician cover 24/7, based on the Delivery Suite. We remain one of only a few trusts in the country to have this level of staffing.
• Investments have been made in the Clinical Governance support team, and two new specialist fetal monitoring lead midwives have been appointed alongside a lead consultant to focus and champion best practice in fetal monitoring.
• 100% of the Trust’s 2021 cohort of registered midwifery preceptees – progressing from Band 5 – Band 6, have remained with the organisation.

Teams at SaTH are committed to sustaining the positive changes that have taken place whilst continuing their improvement work and completing the outstanding actions from the Ockenden Report, working with relevant external parties where they are the lead agency for implementing the action