A woman-led approach to improving postnatal care

As a large NHS teaching trust we see 6,000 women a year who birth with us. Newly appointed as a modern matron, I noted that poor experience on our postnatal ward has always been a key issue in the complaints we receive and from the feedback that our women give to us. The ImPosE (improving postnatal experience) project was launched in December 2013. This brought together members of the multidisciplinary team who were committed to developing our postnatal ward and improving it for our women and their families. We used a quality management approach, putting 'customer' experience at the core, and implemented a varied package of changes as directed by feedback from service users.