Warrington midwives celebrate a year since going paperless

Current mums and mums-to-be will know the pain of trying to remember your green book for each antenatal appointment, while battling the hurdle of baby brain fog that hits most like a bus during pregnancy.

But the game has changed for expecting mums in Warrington, as the hospital now uses the BadgerNet app for all its maternity services.

Kerry Jones, a digital midwife at Warrington Hospital spoke of how the department are celebrating BadgerNet’s one-year anniversary and the vast improvements it has made to their services.

Maternity patients like April now get the option to join BadgerNet, an app which can be accessed from a smart phone and has regular updates and details on their pregnancy journey (Image: Newsquest staff)

“Prior to BadgerNet we were using heavily paper based processes. Everything was documented in handheld paper records. There would be duplication for midwives,” she said.

“Whereas now we document the antenatal booking in real time now on Badgernet. That information is readily accessible, and we do not need to put that information anywhere else.”

The app is a platform the midwives can use to input any patients’ details and information about the pregnancy which is also accessible to patients on their phones.

Each patient will be set up with a profile and will receive notifications of appointment dates, details from previous appointments and even digital leaflets for extra reading.

“Once you have input the information it is visible to everybody. Everybody who has access to Badgernet has access to those records, no matter what area of the hospital it is,” Kerry added.

Kerry’s job is to streamline digital processes within the maternity department and one of her tasks is overseeing the running of the app.

She explained how the switch to digital has been something the NHS has had in the pipeline for ‘years’ but that the pandemic gave hospitals the nudge it needed to implement it.

“In 2016 the Better Births report set out a vision for all maternity units in England to provide service users with their own digital tool and enable them to access their own health records.

“The NHS have had digital plans for years, but I think Covid has really helped to drive those forwards. It is the recognition from visions of reports like the Better Births that have made them stop and look forward.”

The Better Births report reviewed the whole of maternity services across the country and looked at how the NHS can provide individualised and personalised care and how maternity services could improve.

Kerry Jones, digital midwife and Chelsea Holmes, home-birth midwife (Image: Newsquest)

The outcome was very focused around the patient being at ‘the centre of their care’.

Maternity patient, April Delooze, from Padgate, is 32 weeks pregnant with her second child and spoke of the pressures lifted off patients now that the maternity department are not reliant on green books anymore.

“Going digital is definitely better because quite often you are very forgetful when you are pregnant so when I had the green book, I would always forget to bring it to appointments. But everyone is on their phones now, so it is a lot smoother and easier to use it through that.”

She added: “I like that you can access and look at your blood results on there. You also get notifications, and you can upload bump pictures too.”

While the department have followed a new digital process, Kerry added that patients still have the option to have written records too if they do not want to use BadgetNet, but the midwives will still update their records on the app.

April Delooze, a maternity patient at Warrington Hospital experienced her first birth with green books and her second birth currently through BadgerNet (Image: Newsquest)

Homebirth Midwife, Chelsea Holmes echoed the praise for the new digital system.

“I have come from a trust that is paper-based, so to come here with the app is massive. Especially with our home birth babies, being able to access it from women’s homes is massive.

“Appointments wise, coming in and checking the scans on it, we can keep an eye on how things are going. Everything flows much better.”

Chelsea said errors have reduced since moving to digital and it makes life a lot easier for the team.

The department will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of BadgerNet this month and will bring the entire team of midwives together to commemorate the day.

Also Kerry will be attending International Day of the Midwife North West Maternity, a showcase event in Manchester where digital midwives will be presenting achievements and future plans for BadgerNet.