Innovations were shared at the first Patient Safety Collaborative Maternity and Neonatal Learning System event.

More than 50 people attended the event at Citylabs on 12 March, with speakers, interactive activities and information sharing opportunities taking place.

Attendees heard from members of the Patient Safety Collaborative team, part of Health Innovation Manchester, and discussed how the learning system aims to create a safe space where people can learn from and with each other to rapidly spread innovations, best practice and Quality Improvement (QI) Skills.

Speakers on the day included Jen Sager, Senior Project manager at Greater Manchester & Eastern Cheshire Strategic Clinical Networks Maternity System, who set out a vision of working with women and families to meet their wishes and needs to produce outcomes for them and their babies that are comparable to the best in the world.

Getting innovations on the front line, such as Episcissors, were also explained by Cara Afzal, Senior Programme Development Lead at Health Innovation Manchester, and Alexander J Fisher, Director, Advanced Global Health.

Manchester’s innovative Rainbow Clinic was showcased during the event, with a presentation and poignant talk from Victoria Ashcroft who shared her own patient experience of the clinic. Victoria’s son was stillborn and she was anxious during her second pregnancy following the tragic experience. Victoria explained how the Rainbow Clinic and its staff supported her family through the pregnancy and said: “I can’t thank the Rainbow Clinic enough for helping us have the family we wanted.”

Jen McCartney, Divisional Support Manager, Women and Children’s Division and Lewis Stott, Assistant Directorate Manage, from The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, then took the audience through their journey so far after joining wave 1 of the NHSI Maternity & Neonatal Safety Collaborative last year.

Their presentation focused on their “Break the Rules for Better Care” campaign which identified myths that staff were following along with rules that needed a redesign and rules that needed advocacy.

The importance of working, sharing and learning together was then presented by Julie McCabe, Network Director, North West Neonatal Operational Delivery Network, before table discussions and interactive activities focused on the use of Quality Improvement Tools.

Jay Hamilton, Associate Director, Health Implementation, Health Innovation Manchester, said: “This was the first of three meetings in this space and we learned an incredible amount about how to engage and how to improve on future events, which we believe, is the very essence of a learning system.

“The presentations were all on point, clear, sharp and well delivered.

“We hope, with this reflection and openness to change and improvement, that we will build a safe and energetic space, where learning is about taking risks, not fearing failure, celebrating success and continually supporting each other and always improving.”

She added that three key areas of future work emerged from the event – sharing best practice, building on developing QI Skills and developing ideas around excellence in communication.