North Bristol Trust shortlisted for two RCM awards

North Bristol NHS Trust has been shortlisted in two categories at this year’s RCM Awards 2019

Community Midwife team Leader, Catherine Poole has been shortlisted in the category JOHNSONS® Award for Excellence in Maternity Care. This award is for an individual or group who have pioneered an innovative development providing an excellent, compassionate standard of care to women, their babies and families.

Catherine said: “I created a learning disabilities resource booklet, which has been in circulation since September 2016, after identifying a resource need when assisting to create the learning disabilities and pregnancy guidelines. After a successful pilot, the 117 page booklet named ‘My pregnancy, birth and newborn baby booklet’ has been printed with funding from the League of Friends.

Although originally designed for women with learning disabilities, it has been found to be very useful for families where English is not their first language, or where they are deaf, cared for within prison or with head injuries. The booklet, designed to look like the maternal hand held records, takes women and their families through their pregnancy, birth and postnatal journey to the point that the Health Visitors are involved. The large text and colour images promote understanding and points of discussion, engaging women in their care.”

Midwives Mary Lynch and Jacqui Lewis have been shortlisted for the Bereavement Care Award. This award recognises excellence in the provision of bereavement care by maternity staff for women and their families when a baby dies.

Mary said: “For the past two years I have been one of the midwives involved in a research Project – The Parents Study. I have been speaking to parents who have lost their baby before birth or just after birth about thoughts on their pregnancy and feedback on aspects of their care.  

“I presented this parental feedback to multi professional group of doctors, midwives and paediatricians, which meets every month to investigate why a baby has died and tries to find answers for parents.”

Rachel Fielding, Director of Midwifery said: “I am absolutely delighted that we have been shortlisted in two categories in this year’s RCM awards. This really highlights the fantastic and pioneering work being done by our staff and teams.

“It is very sad that since being shortlisted, Jacqui has sadly died having battled a long term illness. Jacqui was loved by women and colleagues alike and is greatly missed. Her legacy will continue in support of the Maple Suite at Southmead and care for bereaved parents”.

The winners will be announced at the Annual RCM Midwifery Awards Lunch on Tuesday March 5 2019.

Source https://www.nbt.nhs.uk/news-media/latest-news/nbt-shortlisted-two-rcm-awards

Gill Walton, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said: “The standard of entries has been extremely high, so to get this far is an outstanding achievement. The entries show how much innovation is going on in our maternity services, and how hard midwives, maternity support workers and the wider maternity team are working to deliver safe, high quality care to women, their babies and families. I wish them the best of luck at the awards ceremony in March.”