Great Western Hospital’s Maternity Department has recently celebrated their first anniversary with Florence helping expectant mothers to monitor their blood pressure during pregnancy. Both parents and hospital staff met in the delivery suite to celebrate and discuss their experiences with local newspaper, The Swindon Advertiser, with Florence and the staff at GWH recognised for their achievements. Florence has been received very well by both staff and patients at GWH.
Sarah Feeney, used Flo during her pregnancy;
“It was a fantastic experience and I didn’t have to come to hospital as frequently as before, when the weather was bad I didn’t have to come in, and I was a lot less anxious at home when I was taking my blood pressure. It made me feel quite empowered to be able to do my blood pressure at home.”
Dr Nusrat Fazal, who has led Florence’s introduction over the past two years has been recognised for her work by being awarded the‘Great Western Hospital Staff Excellence Award for Innovation in Practice’ at the award ceremony held on 22nd June 2018, as well as winning a poster competition at the Bristol Quality and Safety Conference, and being named runner-up for the best presentation at the South Western Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society Meeting 2018.
Nusrat led on the “Go Flo” project, which aimed to raise awareness of Flo across the organisation. As part of this, when Flo was first introduced to the department, staff took part in “Go Flo Fridays” to promote Flo with expecting mums.
Nusrat commented;
“Patient feedback is absolutely fantastic and we’ve had no adverse outcome. Midwives said how it gave them more confidence in safer monitoring and how to manage time more efficiently by replacing face-to-face appointment with Florence.”
Using Flo has also helped the maternity department to improve capacity. So far, since the introduction of Florence, 600 hospital appointments have been saved, with an estimated reduction in costs at GWH by around £67,000 a year.
Anne Webb, midwife at GWH, has found using Flo to be fantastic for both patients and staff:
“Flo 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 Flo saves with childcare, car parking costs, taking time off work. And everyone likes using their phone even if isn’t for facebook!”
