On 17 September, we hosted our second event for the PReCePT (PRevention of Cerebral palsy in PreTerm labour) national programme.
The event welcomed delegates from all 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). There was also a great mix of midwives, obstetricians and neonatologists who have recently been recruited to champion the programme on a local level.
Sarah-Jane Marsh, CEO of Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Chair of the national Maternity Transformation Programme Board, opened the event with an empowering address. She encouraged teams to focus on personal and safe care for mothers and babies and emphasised the need for multi-disciplinary teamwork to drive the programme forward.
The delegates then heard from Elly Salisbury, a public contributor who was involved in PReCePT from the outset, via a video presentation. Speaking for herself and a fellow public contributor, Elly said:
“It matters an incredible amount to us that every mother who goes into preterm labour under 30 weeks should get magnesium sulphate. I was lucky because St Michael’s did provide it for me, but it shouldn’t be that you’re lucky. It should be everywhere, in every hospital because it’s so easy to do and it’s so important.”
The Clinical Lead for the PReCePT programme, Dr Karen Luyt, presented the clinical case for giving mothers in preterm labour (less than 30 weeks gestation) magnesium sulphate. The drug protects babies’ brains from the downward toxic effect of oxygen starvation, reducing the risk of the baby developing cerebral palsy by around one third. We then heard from Maxine Sleath, one of the midwives who worked on the original West of England PReCePT project at Great Western Hospital. She talked about the hospital’s Quality Improvement (QI) approach: what worked well and what was challenging.
Delegates then participated in some excellent table discussions where they focussed on what they needed to do to get ready for PReCePT and how they could encourage PReCePT communities at a local level. Ann Remmers, the West of England AHSN Maternal and Neonatal Clinical Lead presented on how PReCePT fits within other national maternity and neonatal programmes.
Pippa Craggs from University Hospitals Bristol informed delegates about an exciting sister project, the PReCePT Study. The study will research whether enhanced and bespoke QI support improves the uptake of magnesium sulphate administration quicker and more sustainably than the network approach of the PReCePT programme. This work is funded by the Health Foundation as a Scaling Up Improvement project.
It was a busy but productive day and we look forward to working with all the delegates to achieve our national target of 85% (stretch target of 95%) of eligible mothers receiving magnesium sulphate by March 2020.
Posted on September 24, 2018
