Investment boost for midwife training

The Lucina simulator, which arrived at Burnley General Hospital in February, is a £59,000 investment by the Better Training Better Births project to train the Trust’s midwives, obstetricians and anaesthetists.

Angela O’Toole, head of Midwifery at East Lancashire Hospitals, said: “East Lancashire Hospitals is pleased to be part of a national campaign to improve maternity safety in response to The National Maternity Review, Better Births.

“Midwives and obstetricians want to improve working relationships between their professions and other groups such as neonatologists and anaesthetists.”

Better Training Better Births is a collaboration between East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

With funding provided by Health Education England, it aims to build collaboration across local NHS trusts and standardisation of training.

Consultant obstetricians and anaesthetists together with midwives and maternity support workers from each of the three trusts will participate in the redesigned training.

The new developed e-learning programme will be standardised across each site, ensuring evidence based practice across the region.

Catherine Nield, Better Training Better Births Project Lead, said: “We can share and learn together. The feedback from the first training days was fantastic and I cannot wait to see the benefits from this type of training.”