Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme

The Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme (known as MatNeoSIP), was renamed following the launch of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy in July 2019. It was previously known as the Maternal and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative. Read more about the NHS Patient Safety Strategy.

Led by NHS England and Improvement, the National MatNeoSIP’s mission is to create and embed the conditions for all staff to improve the safety and outcomes of maternal and neonatal care by reducing unwarranted variation and provide a high quality healthcare experience for all women, babies and families across England. Read more about the National MatNeo SIP.

In the West of England, MatNeoSIP is supported by the West of England Patient Safety Collaborative, which is hosted by the West of England Academic Health Science Network (AHSN). Read more about our Patient Safety Collaborative.

About the Maternity and Neonatal Patient Safety Network

Our regional Maternity and Neonatal (MatNeo) Patient Safety Network forms the structure and delivery model for the three-year MatNeoSIP.

The MatNeo Patient Safety Network offers a unique opportunity for those working to improve maternal and neonatal care across the local maternity systems to interact and collaborate, and a forum for local improvement to thrive.

The MatNeo Patient Safety Network aims to create a safe space for local learning and sharing and includes members from all providers of maternity and neonatal services, multi-professionals, women, families, and other key stakeholders and covers the West of England region (click here to see a map of our region).

Please visit our events page to find further details of the latest Patient Safety meetings.

Who are we working with

Locally, we are working in partnership with our regional Trusts, Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems (LMS), and other partners including (but not limited to):

• South West Maternity and Children’s Network
• South West Neonatal Operational Delivery Network
• South West AHSN
• Better Births Gloucestershire
• South West Regional Maternity Safety Champions
• Black Mothers Matter
• Representation Matters
• BCohCo 
• South West Public Health England
• South West Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Clinical Network
• Wessex AHSN
• Charities such as Tommy’s, Bliss, The Twins Trust, SANDS

Key ambitions

The National MatNeoSIP aims to:

• Contribute to the national target of increasing the proportion of smoke-free pregnancies to 94% or greater by March 2023.
• Support the spread and adoption of the preterm perinatal optimisation care pathway across England by 95% or greater by March 2025.
• Support the development of a national pathway approach for the effective management of maternal and neonatal deterioration using the Prevent Identify Escalate Respond (PIER) framework across all settings by March 2024.
• Work with key stakeholders to support the development of a national Maternal Early Warning Score (MEWS) by March 2021 and spread to all providers by March 2024.
• To support the spread and adoption of the Neonatal Early Warning Trigger and Track score (NEWTT) to all maternity and neonatal services by March 2023.

We will support these objectives locally by focusing on:

• Optimisation and stabilisation of the preterm infant through
  • birth in the right place;
  • antenatal administration of magnesium sulphate;
  • antenatal corticosteroids;
  • intravenous antibiotics;
  • delayed cord clamping;
  • thermoregulation and
  • early breast milk.
• Smoke-free pregnancy
• Early recognition and management of deterioration of women and babies through:
  • testing MEWS at a system level;
  • examining the current MatNeo Prevent, Identify, Escalate and Respond (PIER) pathway and
  • supporting the adoption and spread of the neonatal early warning ‘trigger and track’ score (NEWTT).

Reducing inequity – Regional Perinatal Equity Network

Want to be part of a network to explore improvements and reduce inequity outcomes for parents? Join our Regional Perinatal Equity Network.

In response to the growing commitment in the region to work together to address inequality within maternity and neonatal services the Network was launched in July 2021 by West of England and South West AHSNs. The Network is open to all working within maternity and neonatal services, related organisations or with a responsibility or interest in reducing inequalities in the NHS. We warmly welcome parents or patient partners to join us.

Our ambition is for the network to serve as a community of practice, exploring the delivery of meaningful, actionable improvements to reduce inequity of outcomes for women and families within the perinatal system.

Aims & Objectives:

• To provide a space for collaboration, discussion and sharing of learning related to reducing inequity for those working in perinatal care in the West and South West AHSN regions.
• To demonstrate a regional commitment to addressing inequalities in maternity and neonatal systems.
• To facilitate a psychologically safe space to explore cultural competency and diversity fluency.
• To act as a community of practice for those implementing inequality QI within the maternity and neonatal systems.

The second meeting of the Network will be held on 19 October. Visit the booking page to find out more and confirm your attendance.

Meet the team

You can meet our internal team members and the external specialists they work with by clicking here.

Get in touch

For more information on our Maternity and Neonatal work and events, please contact our Patient Safety Team.