Midwives play an important role, helping women to stay active and relaxed as labour progresses. To help midwives from twelve maternity units, Innovation Unit is working with the North East London, North Central London and Essex Health Innovation Education Cluster to support a community of practice. The community is helping maternity services to learn from each other and share and develop innovative practice. The project draws on Innovation Unit’s extensive experience of supporting collaborative learning.
We are also helping to capture and develop approaches that can optimise opportunities for normal birth. Using its service design skills to map and share complex systems and protocols, it is helping midwives to visualise their own practice and share it with colleagues. The project has already seen a small reduction in caesarean sections, which is good news both for women and babies. Because normal births are also less costly than caesarean sections, it is also good news for the cash-strapped NHS.
