South East Coast Ambulance service working with midwives to save lives
The training is improving first response care across the region
South East Coast Ambulance clinicians are working with midwives to reduce risks of emergency pregnancies.
Collaborations have included joint training sessions with regional midwives, most recently at SECAmb’s Polegate Make Ready Centre, where nearly 30 colleagues gathered to share expertise and participate in workshops aimed at improving emergency maternity care.
Consultant Midwife at SECAmb, Dawn Kerslake, said:
“Shared learning days are vital in helping us recognise and address the inequalities that can affect outcomes for women and babies in emergency situations.
"By bringing ambulance clinicians and midwives together, we can learn from each other’s experiences, improve how we communicate, and ensure more consistent, high-quality care wherever a birth takes place.
“We’ve already seen the difference collaboration can make through initiatives like the red maternity phone, which has transformed how quickly hospital teams can prepare for incoming patients.
"Building on that success, these learning opportunities help us continue to close the gap and improve outcomes for some of our most vulnerable patients.”
Enhanced ambulance maternity kits also now include foil blankets and warming pads, crucial for preventing hypothermia when immediate skin-to-skin contact isn't feasible for newborn babies.
Talking to us about the challenges of preparing for emergency pregnancies, Kerslake said:
"It just doesn't translate into what you do.
"For instance, you could be in a hospital - that's got four walls so you can assume you've got heat. You've got clinicians that you work with every day. So you are with people that you know. You've got equipment that's familiar to you.
"You haven't got a dog nipping at your ankles.
"There's lots of different things that are controlled in a hospital, and it makes your life very easy.
"As soon as you step outside of hospital, you don't have any of that, and you might be given a piece of equipment that's unfamiliar to you. You're pushed together with other healthcare professionals who you never normally work with, and you don't know those people.
"So, that automatically also brings another element of complexity."
Speaking to expectant mothers she sympathised that no pregnant person wants to be in an emergency, but added:
"To any pregnant woman who's planning a home birth, or maybe even not planning a home birth because sometimes things happen...we will do our absolute level best to get you the best possible care as quickly as we possibly can. And that's that's our hope. That's what we want to do for every woman birthing in our geography."
The initiative was first rolled out in Kent and Sussex, but after seeing success it's now being brought into Surrey.