Our achievements

Posted on 18 Jun 2021

The Trust’s Margaret Oates Mother and Baby Unit (MBU), part of Hopewood in Nottingham, has formally received the Perinatal Quality Network (PQN) accreditation by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The unit has been accredited for 10 years and this reaccreditation is a great testament to their commitment to deliver quality care for mums and their babies.

The 8-bed specialist inpatient perinatal unit is for mothers from 32 weeks of pregnancy with a serious mental illness, and their babies up to one year after birth. They provide rapid and effective care for the mother’s mental illness whilst promoting the mother/baby relationship, using an approach best suited to meet each woman’s needs and wishes to enable a speedy recovery.

The accreditation and review process is used to promote the highest level of care and takes place every three years.  It covers three main phases of the accreditation review: a detailed self-review, a detailed peer review and a decision about accreditation category and feedback.

During the self-review phase, teams measured their performance against the PQN service standards, which are then verified by a peer review team typically consisting of members of the College Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI), a patient representative and health and social care professionals from other perinatal mental health services.

Areas of achievement in the accreditation report included:

• Patients gave great feedback on the environment. They said that the unit is very homely and that it didn’t feel like a hospital.
• Patients were really complimentary about staff, how knowledgeable they are, and how they were always available to ask for advice and guidance.
• The unit has a Fathers’ group which has been taken on by a male member of staff and who is doing a lot of work to develop it.
• Staff said that there was strong morale on the unit and that the team was cohesive. They felt they were well supported and received regular formal supervision as well as other ad-hoc support.

 

The report summary said:

“The staff at Margaret Oates MBU make a hardworking, passionate team, whose service is highly appreciated by mothers in the ward. The unit is in a newly built facility and the design of the unit took into account the opinion and feedback from previous patients. The unit provides a safe and secure space for mothers and their babies to recover in, whilst being cared for in the least restrictive way possible. Despite the pressures of working during a pandemic and the restrictions this brought, staff morale is reportedly high. Moreover, mothers interviewed expressed they were extremely grateful for the care received and felt the permanent staff were kind, caring and compassionate.”

Debbie Sells, Ward Manager of the mother and baby unit, commented:

“We are so delighted that the mother and baby unit has been reaccredited.  It is down to the dedication and commitment of the team who have worked hard to achieve this. The review day, although virtual, was a great opportunity for our staff and mums to highlight the service.”