The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners

The Government’s Maternity Quality Initiative has been put in place to make sure women and their babies get the same high standard of care throughout New Zealand.

The initiative was recently presented at a national Maternity workshop in Wellington with more than 100 participants from the maternity sector and maternity consumer organisations. The initiative includes:

• New Zealand Maternity Standards
• DHB-funded Maternity Services Specifications
• DHB-funded Maternity Services Specifications
• Implementing a Maternity Quality & Safety Programme at DHB level
• Guidelines for consultation with obstetric and related medical services (Referral Guidelines)
• Maternity Clinical Indicators
• National Maternity Clinical Guidelines

Following feedback from workshop participants, the Referral Guidelines have been updated and are expected to be available online in January 2012 along with the Maternity Clinical Guidelines and Indicators.  Read more about the launch here.

National Monitoring Group

The Ministry of Health is in the process of setting up a National Monitoring Group to oversee the implementation of the Maternity Quality and Safety Programme. Early in 2012 the Ministry will call for nominations from professional colleges, DHBs and consumer organisations. Read more about the monitoring group here.

Better maternity information

A new maternity factsheet is available that shows how the National Maternity Collection can be used to analyse maternity data to improve health outcomes for new mothers and babies. The collection will have more information than has previously been available. Read the fact sheet here.

Work is also underway to develop a shared maternity record of care, a national DHB maternity data system and collection of maternity data from DHB-provided primary maternity services.