Maternity healthcare platform is to be extended to neonatal care in Morecambe Bay and Blackpool

BadgerNet Maternity electronic patient record (EPR) was introduced in 2020 as part of plans for a fully integrated maternity service across the four provider trusts in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

By June 2022, East Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT), Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH), Blackpool Teaching Hospital (BTH) and University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay (UHMBT) were all using the system.

Now, nearly 18,000 expectant mums-to-be across our communities can use BadgerNet to access their maternity notes, keep in touch with their midwives and share information.

However, extending the healthcare platform to neonatal care will also give mums-to-be the opportunity to view regular updates on their baby and photos of them on the neonatal unit via a secure app on a tablet device.

BadgerNet neonates has been being used in ELHT for several years, and is due to in the remaining trusts across the integrated care system within the next 18 months. The feedback from families is very positive, reporting they’re feeling reassured by being able to access information about their baby, 24 hours a day and share to with family and friends.

Feedback from mums-to-be:

“My twins were admitted to neonatal intensive care as they had to be delivered 10 weeks early, as I was very poorly. The nurses who were looking after my babies brought me an iPad so that I could get regular diary updates and see pictures and videos of them. It helped keep me positive and involved until I was well enough to visit them.” (Chloe, mum to Jack and Lily)  

“Phoebe was born at 32 weeks during Covid. My partner was isolating and wasn’t able to come to the hospital. I was able to share the baby diary with him, so he didn’t miss out.”  (Lizzie)

Coralie Rogers, Lancashire and South Cumbria (LSC) Clinical Lead Midwife, said: “This is a fantastic development for maternity services across our four maternity providers. The introduction of BadgerNet in neonatal care means that parents are better connected to their baby in the neonatal unit. For example, if a mum has had a caesarean section and is recovering on the post-natal ward, she can securely connect via an iPad at the bedside where she can see pictures of her baby in the neonatal unit and updates on care.

“BadgerNet gives mums-to-be greater choice and flexibility because they can move around and access care wherever is suitable for them. It avoids duplication because their information is all in one place. They can have confidence that their records are secure as they can be accessed only by midwives and clinicians authorised to the woman’s care.”

Coralie continued: “The system also has many benefits for staff because it gives them access to a constantly updated record which alerts them to any important information that they need to ensure that care is tailored to the parent. If staff need to refer a woman to a different service, they no longer have to fill in a paper form as they can do this on BadgerNet – this gives them more time with the women in their care.”

In March this year, BadgerNet across Lancashire and South Cumbria also became available in nine additional and most commonly spoken languages including Polish, Punjabi, Bengali, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Lithuanian, Somali, Welsh. - imrpoving communication better between midwives and mums-to-be. There are plans to extend this to other languages in the future.

In 2021, £1millon of funding was secured by NHS England maternity unified technical fund for maternity service improvements across Lancashire and South Cumbria.  The money has been invested in:

• Introducing ‘The Real Birth’ app which gives parent-to-be access to online antenatal classes. Their midwife will suggest tailored modules for their specific birthing history and current pregnancy for example if they have had a previous caesarean section. 
• Ensuring midwives and obstetricians have access to up-to-date equipment to access BadgerNet.
• Ensuring the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems across the four provider trusts are fully integrated.
• Introducing secure iPads in patient contact centres and post-natal wards across the four provider trusts which can be used by mums-to-be to access the platform.

Coralie added: “We have lots of plans going forward for the maternity service across Lancashire and South Cumbria. We a currently working on another project using some of the anonymised data from our dashboards to ensure we are targeting prevention in certain areas. For example, where there are areas with a lot of   smokers who are pregnant we can put on extra smoking cessation classes to support them to quit smoking.”

What is BadgerNet Maternity?

BadgerNet Maternity is an electronic maternity healthcare record system, created and managed by CleverMed Ltd. It allows real-time recording of all events wherever they occur: in the hospital, the community, or at home. This includes both high risk (consultant-led) and low risk (midwife-led) pregnancy pathways. Based on a woman-centred care model, the BadgerNet Maternity system comes with a portal for women to view and access their own maternity records online.

Badger Notes is the online portal and app that allows you to access your maternity records over the internet through your PC, tablet device or mobile phone. The information that you view is generated in real-time from your hospital-based maternity system record, using details entered by your midwife or other health professionals involved in your care.

Key features of the system include a week by week timeline of your pregnancy, access to information recommend by your midwife and key appointments. The system also allows women to access extracts of information direct from their medical record, submit thoughts and questions about their care, birth plan and postnatal care to their midwife and access a full library of the hospitals pregnancy patient information leaflets.