The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit

The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA) is a national audit of the NHS maternity services across England, Scotland and Wales, commissioned in July 2016 by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP). The overarching aim of the NMPA is to produce high-quality information about NHS maternity and neonatal services which can be used by providers, commissioners and users of the services to benchmark against national standards and recommendations where these exist, and to identify good practice and areas for improvement in the care of women and babies. The first clinical report of the NMPA includes analysis of almost 700,000 births which took place between 1/4/15 and 31/3/16. During this presentation, midwives will be introduced to the NMPA and the first Clinical Report which will include the characteristics of women giving birth in Britain today, the audit findings relating to labour and birth, the variation identified and how midwives can use this information to consider improvements in care. The aim of the session is to inform and inspire midwives to use the audit findings to stimulate thought, ask challenging questions and to reflect on local regional and national findings to identify priority areas for improving the care of women and their babies