The West Coast District Health Board is pleased to present the Maternity Quality and Safety Programme Annual Report for 2017/18.
The West Coast has had a busy year again this year building on the work of the past years. The report last year has been shared widely and has prompted more discussion about how we can continue to improve the maternity system for our mothers and their babies. These discussions have sat alongside the wider discussions within our DHB about the challenges of a rural / remote rural DHB the length of the South Island and how we provide health services equitably. In this case we have been discussing how we provide maternity services and how we have to develop this work capacity among other colleagues particularly in our remotest parts of the DHB such as Haast as an example.
We also continue to work closely with our colleagues in Canterbury DHB and have relooked at our clinical governance and operational governance model this year so we truly oversee our own business on the West Coast. Where we have combined has been the sharing of the Guidelines work this year with the West Coast team now being on the Guidelines Committee in Canterbury and therefore aware of and contributing to all new trans alpine guidelines and what the difference in the application of them might be for the West Coast. This is also occurring more frequently for education updates as well as support for the managers, educator and others involved in maternity. We are also looking at how to engage with more locum cover for our O&G service from Canterbury colleagues, but this is still
being discussed. The Canterbury and West Coast Maternity Quality and Safety Programmes have also separated this year to ensure that the unique nature of both DHBs and how their services are provided and we are confident this will be reflected in how our respective reports now also look.
The Maternity Quality and Safety Programme continues to add significant value to our maternity system on the West Coast. Considerable work has commenced in reviewing the clinical outcome data and lessons that can be learned to support the clinicians making the decisions in this remote DHB. These reviews of outcomes are now happening regularly and generating debate about how things might have been done differently by any or all of the parties involved. This is a sophisticated discussion that can occur on the West Coast because it is a small workforce who are building their trust across the professions assisted by strong clinical leadership locally. This report starts to discuss some of these projects and also the completion of projects we commenced in the previous year.
We are looking forward to the work programme of 2018/19 as we take on some ambitious projects- such as developing a functioning consumer council across the whole of the West Coast to recognise the regional variations. We are also undertaking a review of the West Coast mental health pathway now it is operationalised and how we can actively engage more effectively with Tangata Whenua. These projects in the coming year would not have been able to be progressed without the hard work of the team involved in the Maternity Quality and Safety programme and the strong support of the wider workforce for their work.
Thank you very much to our MQSP Coordinator Vicki Piner, our new Midwife Manager Catarina Morais and O&G lead Ravi Vermulapalli who enthusiastically keep us all motivated and focused on improving our maternity services on system the West Coast. I hope you enjoy reading our report.