South West London maternity and neonatal service equity and equality detailed action plan, 2023 to 2027
This plan sets out how we aim to achieve maternity and neonatal service equity and equality in South West London.
Why we have developed this action plan
We know that birthing parents and babies from minority ethnic backgrounds as well as those living in deprived areas, are more likely to suffer with complications before and after their pregnancy. This includes higher levels of mums and babies dying during childbirth.
We also know that people from the LGBTQ+ community, people with learning difficulties, mental illness and other protected characteristics can also suffer worse outcomes during and after pregnancy.
Therefore, the NHS has asked us to put measures in place to make sure every birthing parent and baby has a good outcome, no matter what their background is or where they live. This is called creating equity.
The NHS has identified five priorities for England and these priorities have helped us to understand what we need to focus on.
- Work together to restore NHS services after the pandemic
- Help people to access digital services
- Make sure we always take people’s data correctly and in a timely manner
- Make sure people from minority ethnic backgrounds and from deprived areas are aware of and have access to our preventative programmes
- Strong leadership and accountability
Our values
Our action plan is also guided by the NHS’s three values.
Proportionate universalism
This means to achieve equality we need to target our efforts on the areas of most need.
Co-production
The actions we take to achieve equity will be much more effective if we work in partnership with parents and staff and really listen to what they have to say.
Collaboration
We will all need to work together with the community, our workforce and our partners to tackle the reasons why some groups are more likely to have poor outcome.
About us
- Women giving birth are more likely to be aged between 31-40 compared to other areas.
- Overall, in 2021/22 maternity bookings were lower than previous years.
- Births were 7% lower in 2021/22 than in 2019/20.
- People in the Croydon borough have the worst health outcomes in their deprived areas including higher smoking rates and higher low term birth weight babies.
- From 2015-19 the general fertility rate was 61.8 live births per 1,000 women.
- There are 4 Maternity and Neonatal Voice Partnerships with local people and professionals working together to improve local maternity care.
- 2021/22 data shows that Croydon has the highest percentage of deliveries to mothers from minority ethnic groups compared to Richmond which has the lowest percentage.
- Croydon borough has the most pockets of deprivation.
- There is a higher rate of stillbirth in minority ethnic groups.
- 2019 data shows that Merton has the highest percentage of residents with English as a second language compared to Richmond which has the lowest percentage.
Information:
*Data source from local monthly data returns direct from maternity units in south west London. The data is a snapshot of live activity over the most recent 6 months, April to August 2021.
Our objectives
We have identified 7 objectives to deliver this plan. They are:
Community access
We want women and birthing people to know how to access our maternity services which means making sure we are available in places we are needed.
Listening and acting
We need to be listening more to our women and birthing parents so that we can identify issues with the pregnancy journey early and be proactive.
Accessing prevention programmes
We will increase the number of people accessing our prevention programmes, ensuring that our women and birthing people get continuity of care.
Better services for people with protected characteristics
We will look at how we provide services for people with protected characteristics including disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community.
Improving and learning as a system
We want to create a safe working culture where we learn from mistakes and challenge each other.
Improve data collection
We will collect and use data better to have a greater understanding of our women and birthing people and their experiences and therefore provide an improved service.
Increase staff equity and wellbeing
We will look at how we can increase support for our staff and improve their wellbeing.
Some of the work we will do
For each of the objectives we have set ourselves a series of actions to deliver.
Below are some examples of what we will do.
Community access
- Make sure all families in minority ethnic groups and those living in deprived areas get the right information as early as possible.
- Make sure the Baby Buddy app is easily available to all families with digital access.
- Make sure Personalised Care and Support Plans (PCSPs) are available in different languages and formats, including hard copies for those without digital access.
Listening and acting
- Make sure it is easy for women and birthing people to share their experiences.
- Make sure women and birthing people’s voices are relayed back to staff routinely.
- Make sure each trust has translation services available.
Accessing prevention programmes
- Increase continuity of carer in women from minority ethnic backgrounds and those living in deprived areas.
- Reduce the number of women and birthing people who smoke during their pregnancy.
- Encourage more women and birthing people to take vitamin D.
Better services for people with protected characteristics
- Work with maternity units to define a consistent set of data metrics to regularly review.
- Carry out an analysis to see where inequalities are.
Improve data collection
- Regularly review Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems data to continuously improve the quality of how we capture a patient’s ethnic background.
Increase staff equity and wellbeing
- Provide training opportunities for maternity staff.
- Encourage midwives to sign up to Capitalmidwife (a London-wide scheme to support midwives).
- Support our maternity services to apply a new anti-racism framework.