Empowering Expectant Mothers with Access to their Birth Records

A Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust Case Study

Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, the principal provider of acute, specialist and community care services in the county of Cornwall, serves a population of around 450,000 and supports approximately 4,200 births per year.

In 2017, the Trust deployed Wellbeing Software’s Euroking maternity information system, enabling an up-to-date and accurate version of women’s full electronic health records, including scan reports, to be available digitally in one place. Euroking replaced at least 20 paper-based forms from the Trust’s process, and began moving its maternity services to a digitally-led approach.

Giving women digital access to their maternity records is also part of a broader challenge faced by the NHS as a whole – the move away from paper and towards a digital future.

As part of its implementation of the Better Births initiative and a drive to paperlight processes, the Trust applied for a grant from NHS Digital to implement an electronic Personal Health Record (PHR) system for pregnant women to access throughout the county.

 

Angela Whittaker, matron for acute maternity services and project lead, at Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust said:

“The Better Births initiative is all about giving expectant mothers a choice over their own care throughout pregnancy and beyond – and that means granting women access to information clearly, in real-time and from anywhere. By implementing PHR with Wellbeing Software, we have taken a powerful step in the right direction and will be able to help thousands of women across Cornwall to have a more empowered, informative and supportive pregnancy journey.”

Download the Royal Cornwall Case Study