Initiatives underway to improve maternity care and experiences

29 August 2024
The NSW Government has responded to the Birth Trauma Inquiry and has supported 42 of its 43 recommendations to improve the experience and wellbeing of all pregnant women and their families across the state.

The experiences of women heard throughout the Birth Trauma Inquiry highlighted the critical importance of respectful, compassionate, trauma-informed and culturally safe maternity care.

It’s why the NSW Government is announcing today that NSW Health is accelerating five initiatives over the next 12 months in response to the Birth Trauma Inquiry, to ensure women and their families receive compassionate, respectful, evidence-based and equitable maternity care.

The five initiatives to be accelerated are:
  • increasing access to maternity continuity of care models;
  • embedding trauma-informed maternity care;
  • improving the way information is provided to women;
  • improving consent processes in maternity care; and
  • supporting women who experience pregnancy complications.

What was shared through the inquiry also amplified what NSW Health heard through consultation with more than 18,000 women, their partners and families in the development of Connecting, listening and responding: A Blueprint for Action – Maternity Care in NSW (the Blueprint), published in March 2023.

The Blueprint was also informed by extensive consultation with clinicians about what matters to them. Local health districts across NSW are using the Blueprint to guide redesign and improvement of maternity services.

Considerable commitment has been made or is in progress to improve NSW maternity care including:
  • Brighter Beginnings - a $376.5 million cross-agency collaboration to improve outcomes for NSW children and their families in the first 2000 days, from pregnancy to school age.
  • A $130.9 million Family Start Package to boost lifelong maternal and child health, which includes the Waminda Birth Centre and Community Hub.
  • Pregnancy Connect - a $6.19 million investment to improve access to specialist maternity care and the safe transfer of women who require higher levels of care.
  • A review of the SAFE START policy to ensure evidence-based psychosocial and mental health screening and referral of women to specialist support services as required.
  • Development of a guideline, Perinatal Loss, to strengthen bereavement support to parents who experience pregnancy or newborn loss.​
  • Establishment of the Maternity Co-Leadership Model to ensure senior midwifery and obstetric leadership in each local health district.
  • Provided $10,000 to the Gidget Foundation Australia, from the Premier’s Discretionary Fund, to enable the development of a training program and new tools to assist the health workforce with supporting expectant and new parents.
The NSW Government is also taking steps to strengthen the health workforce, to ensure ongoing delivery of high-quality and culturally responsive care by:
  • Providing more than $2.5 billion over four years in the FY2023-24 NSW budget to recruit and retain more skilled nurses, midwives, allied health workers and clinicians including $419.1 million to recruit an additional 1,200 nurses and midwives by 2025-26 to implement Safe Staffing Levels in our public hospitals.
  • Investing $121.9 million over the next five years to provide healthcare students with study subsidies.
  • Doubling the incentives available to healthcare workers when relocating to remote and rural areas from $10,000 to $20,000 and
  • Delivering a boost to take home pay for more than 50,000 healthcare workers through increased salary packaging benefits.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Health, Ryan Park:
“We apologise to women who have not received the high standard of maternity care they should have.

“We also recognise and are grateful for the courage of the thousands of women who shared their deeply personal and difficult experiences with the Select Committee on Birth Trauma.

“The NSW Government supports in full or in principle 42 of the 43 recommendations, noting that the other recommendation is for the Chair to action. We have heard what matters most to women, and their families, to meet their diverse needs.

“The Government Response outlines our ongoing commitment and the actions underway to improve their experiences and health and wellbeing outcomes.”

Quotes attributable to NSW Health Deputy Secretary, System Strategy and Patient Experience, Deb Willcox AM:
“We recognise pregnancy, birth and the transition to parenthood are profound life events.

“NSW Health is committed to strengthening and improving maternity care for women and their families.

“We will continue to listen to and learn from women about their birth experiences in order to deliver the best possible maternity care that improves experiences and health and wellbeing outcomes for women, babies and families in NSW.”

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