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Digital maternity: harnessing digital technology in maternity services

NHS Digital ran four digital maternity projects, within the Harnessing Digital Technology workstream, to help NHS England meet its objective of improving outcomes in maternity services in England and supporting the Long Term plan.

Digital Maternity programme update

These web pages are no longer being updated. Further information about the Maternity Transformation programme is available on the NHS England website.

The Maternity Transformation programme

The Maternity Transformation Programme aims to make wide ranging improvements to maternity services following the National Maternity Review, and is an important part of the NHS Long Term plan which recommends, "by 2023/2024, all women will be able to access their maternity notes and information through their smart phones or other devices." The maternity transformation programme seeks to achieve the vision set out in Better Births by bringing organisations together to lead and implement the change.

We believe the key to this work's success is to continue to collaborate with health care professionals involved in maternity care, women and their families to make sure they remain at the heart of our work. 


Harnessing Digital Technology workstream

This work stream provides the digital elements of the Better Births vision. Better Births recommends if we are to improve the quality of care, learning and productivity, the NHS needs to make it much easier for health professionals to collect and share data with each other and with their patients.

This new way of working requires significant change to many and impacts all areas of the pregnancy pathways including ante-natal, labour and birth and all the post-natal period, across all health care. 

The Secretary of State refers to safety as the golden thread running through the Maternity Transformation programme. Making better use of data, improving women's experiences of care, and ensuring the maternity workforce has regular training will all make a significant contribution to safer maternity services.

We will continue to run networking forums, engaging with clinicians and local digital health care leaders.  

Better Births recommends that to improve quality of care, learning and productivity, the NHS needs to make it much easier for health professionals to collect and share data with each other and with their patients. The new model of care requires a significant change in the use and access of information to support continuity of care throughout the ante-natal, intrapartum and post-natal period. 


Digital maternity projects

Further information about the Maternity Transformation programme is available on the NHS England website.

NHS Digital led on the Harnessing Digital Technology workstream up until June 2020.  Further information about this work up until is available through the national archive.  

Read about the findings from the implementation of the Women’s Digital Care Records accelerators’ project analysis report published March 2020.

Last edited: 13 February 2024 3:14 pm