Celebrating maternity excellence

It was a privilege to attend the Baby Lifeline UK Maternity Unit Marvels (MUM) Awards, celebrating the expertise and commitment of maternity, fetal medicine, and neonatal teams.

We heard stories from nominees dedicated to improving maternity services across the UK. From brave families sharing their experiences of exceptional clinical care, to teams driving service improvements and initiatives to improve staff wellbeing and retention. Every nomination was a testament to the hard work and commitment of healthcare professionals working in some of the most challenging circumstances.

As one of the Trusts we work closely with I was full of pride seeing University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust win an award. Listening to a brave family’s journey through complicated pregnancies with the support of the dedicated staff at Royal Derby Hospital brought home the profound impact compassion, empathy and dedication to ensuring safe maternity and neonatal care can have. Stories like these are incredibly important to share, not only to highlight the critical role these teams deliver, but also to promote best practice and share “what good looks like”. There is so much we can learn from each other when things are going right.

In times where difficulties with maternity services are well documented, we need to keep momentum up and share the positive work going on in the maternity space, to keep staff motivated and inspired to continue on improvement journeys. Honouring achievements through awards and public acknowledgement provides well-deserved recognition for those who go above and beyond, but its important to reflect on the smaller steps we can all take which can make such a difference to those working in such a challenging field. In our specialist maternity services division at Browne Jacobson we have seen many good examples of this:

• Share good news stories - make these visible, talk about them, consider a maternity safety day to share amongst staff.
• Ensure you have physical resources like a coffee room for shared learning and ideas and a safe space where people feel able to talk.
• Look after staff - listen, be kind. A simple thank you goes a long way. Learn from units with good staff retention.
• Empower people to speak up with concerns, and have opportunities for staff to feedback. Don’t be afraid to challenge each other.
• Accept when you don’t get it right and be honest when things go wrong. 
• Make a commitment to safety and improvement at all levels and work together.
• Constantly reinforce safe, ethical and respectful behaviours.
• Have time to reflect when needed.

If you need any support with any of the above please reach out to our specialist maternity team. If you would like further information regarding our services please visit our Maternity Services Resource Hub.