Innovative app being adopted across the NHS
09 October 2019
Today, the Mum & Baby app—born from a need to provide reliable information to women in North West London—is adopted by other Local Maternity Systems across England including the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (BOB ICS).
Mum & Baby app exemplifies transformative power of digital innovation in NHS and is adopted by two more local maternity systems
Today, the Mum & Baby app—born from a need to provide reliable information to women in North West London—is adopted by other Local Maternity Systems across England including the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (BOB ICS). The innovative app, originally developed by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and its charity CW+ with specialist healthcare app developers Imagineear, has evolved in partnership with the North West London Local Maternity System and delivers on the NHS England’s Better Births vision for more personalised maternity care.
Now in its fourth version, the award-winning app has been co-designed with mothers and partners, midwives, doctors, health visitors, mental health specialists, physiotherapists and infant feeding leads from across North West London, and expanded to provide a single source of trusted information relevant to the entire maternity journey and beyond. Through the app, women can choose their maternity service providers based on their preferences, refer themselves to the maternity service using the online self-referral form, have information guiding them through different stages of pregnancy, and develop their digital personalised care plans for pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period, which they can share with their maternity team to enhance better communication and shared decision making. The app also provides links to local children centres and services that they can access.
Helen Maric, North West London Maternity Transformation Programme Lead, says: “We are delighted that more women across the UK can now download the locally-tailored, clinician-validated, evidenced-based Mum & Baby app. The growing adoption of the app illustrates the transformative power of clinician-user collaborations in improving the care of pregnant women and new mothers. We hope that more and more local maternity services across the UK want to share the app with their patients.”
Doctor Sunita Sharma, Consultant Obstetrician at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and initial creator of the app, says: “The Mum & Baby app shows how clinicians can innovate and harness digital technology to empower patients and their families. Over the last four years, we have been able to co-design the app to enhance and adapt to meet the needs of women and their families. We’re thrilled that more women across the country can now benefit from the clinician-validated information in the Mum & Baby app, which also encourages them to make personal care plans and provides them with locally relevant health and wellbeing information.”
Download the Mum & Baby app
The Mum & Baby app is available in both iOS and Android formats.