Maternity Pathway
Educate, Support & Motivate New and Expecting Mums with our Maternity Pathway
The Digital Maternity Package is a collection of evidence based best practice protocols to detect and manage:
City Hospitals Sunderland Foundation Trust (CHSFT) was one of the first sites to use Florence and since then the spread and adoption, due to best practice sharing through our community, has expanded to Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospital, Dudley and Great Western Hospitals. Working together for over three years, we have learnt what makes a difference to pregnant women.
- Less face-to-face consultation time
- Improves clinical decision making, resulting in the opportunity to intervene earlier
- Increases patient safety with real time advice
- Increases patient engagement, awareness and knowledge of their BP, BG or foetal movements
- Provides extended support to new mums upon discharge, to educate and motivate towards continuation of breastfeeding
- Increase in the wide-ranging and long-lasting benefits to both mum and baby due to higher number of weeks breastfeeding
82%
of women said that Florence helped them become more aware of their baby’s movements
92%
of women felt that Florence’s messages helped them attend their appointments
93%
of women confirmed that they would recommend Florence to other women in the same circumstances
Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH)
Pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) affects about 6-8% of pregnant women and can lead to serious consequences such as pre-eclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, placental abruption and intrauterine foetal death. PIH is managed in a number of ways, including an increase in pre-natal check-ups, which represents a significant workload for NHS maternity staff. NICE guidance advises twice weekly monitoring of blood pressure for women diagnosed with PIH. Almost 20% of Day Assessment Unit patients present just for BP monitoring.
Great Western Hospitals
Dr Nusrat Fazal, Consultant Obstetrician at Great Western Hospitals has been using Florence since 2018 and has seen excellent multi-disciplinary staff engagement within the maternity unit and joint stakeholder working.
800+
appointments replaced (10%)
£67,000
Saved per year
100%
Would recommend Florence
City Hospitals Sunderland Foundation Trust (CHSFT)
Mr Kim Hinshaw, Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist at City Hospitals Sunderland (NHS Innovation Awards – Finalists 2013 and ehealth insider finalists – 2014) found equally astonishing results:
Saves £36,000
Florence also reduced Day unit attendance – potential saving £180 per visit x 100 women x2 visits saved
Saves £12,000
Florence replaced a lot of Community Midwife visits – £60 per home visit (usually x2 visits per week) x 100 women for 1 week
“Florence enables pregnant women to self-monitor their blood pressure at home, which means less appointments for them at the hospital or with the community midwives. Using Florence saves with childcare, car parking costs, taking time off work. And everyone likes using their phone even if isn’t for Facebook!”
Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM)
Florence is used to enable safe monitoring of maternal blood glucose levels at home for women with GDM. Once consented, women are prompted twice daily to take and send their blood glucose readings to Florence. When two high results are recorded, women are then prompted to make contact via phone with their Diabetes Specialist Midwife or Nurse and discuss their results and determine what changes can be made or whether treatment is necessary. The Health Care Professional also receives an email notification of the result, allowing them to then contact the woman at this critical point.
Florence is empowering women, providing them with support to become more involved and engaged with their condition. By utilising accessible communication, Florence is breaking down common barriers to communication, particularly with patients for whom English is not their first language.
Saves £240
Over a 20 week period based on a single visit cost of £80 per patient
4 to 1
Reduction in appointments when monitoring and managing GDM
Breast Feeding Support
The evidence is well established for the benefits to mother and baby of breastfeeding, with breastfeeding having some of the most wide-reaching and long-lasting effects on a baby’s health and development, more than anything else Mums can do for their new-born. Any amount of breastfeeding has a positive effect on Mum and baby and the longer breastfeeding continues, the longer the protection lasts and the greater the benefits.
Florence can complement existing strategies aimed at supporting women to maintain breastfeeding post discharge from hospital. By offering support advice and guidance, we can increase the patient’s awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding health and empowering the patient to access and adhere to available advice and guidance, improving their self-care around breastfeeding.
Flo sends reassuring and supportive messages scheduled for key points in the early breast-feeding and baby development pathway. Florence has an antenatal programme which starts as early as 12 weeks gestation and a postnatal programme which lasts for 6 weeks.
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Councils
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council’s Breastfeeding Support Team have been using the Breastfeeding Support protocol for three years.
66%
Found that Florence helped them to start breastfeeding
83%
Felt that Florence had motivated them to continue to breastfeed
96%
Would recommend Florence to their friends and family
City Hospitals Sunderland Foundation Trust (CHSFT)
Mr Kim Hinshaw, Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist at City Hospitals Sunderland has been using Florence for over five years and found that Florence helps motivate women to continue to breastfeed.
55%
Increase in mums who felt completely in control of their feeding choices
72%
Of mums would recommend the Florence Breastfeeding Support
“I really appreciated the encouragement that Florence gave and did spur me on to breastfeed for longer.”
