Michelle shares successful safety initiative in midwifery journal blog | News

Michelle Maunder, a midwife at Royal Surrey, launched a safety initiative in Maternity Services to improve staff knowledge, confidence and emergency skills training. Now she has shared the idea nationally via an award-winning midwifery journal.

Using knowledge from her airline cabin crew training in a previous role, Michelle introduced the idea of holding two-minute ‘what if’ safety refresher sessions during daily handovers on our antenatal ward.

The sessions were launched in January 2023 and have been welcomed by maternity colleagues. The two-minute briefings cover potential scenarios including how to manage pregnancy complications such as eclampsia, hypoglycaemia, or what to do in the case of a maternal collapse, missing baby incident or anaphylaxis and more.  

Following the success of her idea, Michelle was encouraged by colleagues to share the initiative more widely and has now written a blog post for online journal, The Practising Midwife. 

She said: “The sessions help build confidence, cement learning and improve team readiness for emergency situations. I’ve had a great deal of positive feedback from the team saying that the sessions are extremely reassuring and informative and help keep people in touch with topics that would normally not be covered on a regular basis.

“I’m always keen to share good ideas and I’m pleased that my blog has been published and highlights what great work we’re doing at Royal Surrey. These short but informative sessions are a great complement to our regular training and help enhance safety for mothers, babies and families, they’re also a cheap, transferrable tool that can be used in other areas.”