Maternity
GIRFT carried out a national review of maternity and gynaecology services from 2019-2020 and the programme’s national report – containing recommendations for both specialties – was published in September 2021.
GIRFT’s maternity recommendations focused on reinforcing existing guidance in maternity care and were aligned with initiatives such as NHS England’s Maternity Transformation Programme, the Saving Babies’ Lives Care Bundle (2016) and the Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme, as well as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Each Baby Counts initiative.
The recommendations and actions in the report focused on antenatal care, continuity of care for pregnant women and access to support and included:
- Striving towards healthy BMI rates and smoking cessation;
- Improving data to inform future practice;
- Reducing litigation around maternity services.
GIRFT has now separated out the specialties of gynaecology and maternity.
- Former Maternity and Gynaecology Clinical Lead
Rob Sherwin
Former maternity and gynaecology clinical lead and national report author
Rob is currently the Medical Director for Specialised Commissioning & Health and Justice in NHS East of England.
He previously worked as a urogynaecologist and the Director of Women’s Health Services at Auckland District Heath Board in New Zealand. and prior to that as a consultant and associate medical director at the Whittington Hospital, London.
- Former Maternity and Gynaecology Clinical Lead
David Richmond
Maternity and gynaecology clinical lead
David is currently a non-executive director at Birmingham Women and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and a member of the Medical Defence Union (MDU) Council and Cases Committee.
After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1977 and spending his initial training there, David became a lecturer at Liverpool University in 1983. He spent a year as a senior resident in Adelaide, Australia, before appointment as consultant in 1990 in Liverpool. He was medical director of Liverpool Women’s Hospital from 1993 until 2010 before his election as vice president and then president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (2013 to 2016).
His clinical specialty was that of urogynaecology. As chair of the audit committee of the British Society of Urogynaecology (BSUG) he developed the national BSUG surgical database with others. At the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) he was instrumental in delivering the first national outcome report for maternity which is now the National Maternal and Perinatal Audit programme. He retired from NHS clinical practice in 2017.
- Summary of National Report Findings
GIRFT national report focuses on safety and choice for women using maternity and gynaecology services
Protecting the safety of mothers and their newborn babies, while improving women’s choice and their experience of the NHS, is at the heart of the national report for maternity and gynaecology services from the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme.
Find out more about GIRFT’s data-led approach and best practice resources:
- Maternity and Gynaecology National Report
In September 2021, GIRFT published its national speciality report for Maternity and Gynaecology:
Click above to view the pdf report – the November 2024 version includes an addendum relating to recommendation 9 (page 113).
- Maternity and Gynaecology Report Video
Watch the video about the Maternity and Gynaecology report…
Click above to play the Maternity and Gynaecology national report video
- Maternity News