My maternity journey: personalised care and support plans
Download (PDF 388.05 KB)Summary of report content
Healthwatch Nottingham and Nottinghamshire worked with the Maternity Voices Partnership to improve the use of Personalised Care and Support Plans in maternity care. They had heard that plans were handed out to pregnant women, but in practice they weren’t being used. There was an opportunity to improve the situation with the digitalisation of maternity notes at local hospitals. They spoke to nine staff and three service users.
People mentioned a number of issues that were good about personalised care and support plans. These included open relevant questions, the use of easy to understand language, information being translated into community languages, and it’s helpful to provide a summary of care so that women don’t have to repeat themselves.
They also commented on what could be improved with personalised care and support plans, including that the women and one of the staff members had never seen one before, the information being held elsewhere, it not being compulsory and staff not having the time to complete it due to staffing shortages.
They also made suggestions for additional questions, including preferred pronouns, thoughts on having a medical intervention and support for mental health.
The report contains six recommendations about improving use of the personalised care and support plans.