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A Framework for maternity services in Scotland

Susan Deacon MSP, Minister for Health and Community Care

Ministerial foreword

Having a baby is a major life event, and early influences - even before birth - have consequences for life-long health. Since devolution, the Scottish Executive has given renewed energy, focus and investment to supporting parents, children and families. Our aim is to work in partnership with individuals, communities and with service providers to ensure that children across Scotland get the best possible start in life - even before birth. Maternity services have a vital role to play in providing women, their partners and their babies with the care and support they need at this important time.

Through greater partnership and co-operation - between health professionals as well as between professionals, women and their families - we have already made good progress in developing maternity care in Scotland. But there is much more to be done to ensure that, across Scotland, women receive high quality maternity care before, during and after the birth of their child. That is why I asked the Chief Nursing Officer to prepare this, the first ever, Framework for Maternity Services in Scotland.

This Framework is the product of wide consultation with women and professionals. We have listened carefully both to the users and to the providers of services. The Framework reflects their views and addresses their concerns. It sets out clearly and explicitly the maternity service which should be offered across Scotland. It will inform and enable local action in response to local conditions. It challenges the NHS to provide an essentially community based, midwife managed service with easy access to specialist services whenever needed.

In "Our National Health: A plan for action, a plan for change", published in December 2000, we set out our plans for investment and reform of the NHS in Scotland. The Plan is an ambitious, but achievable, programme of work designed to achieve a step change in the health of the Scottish people and in the quality, access and responsiveness of healthcare in Scotland. This Framework sets out how these principles will be applied to the provision of maternity services across Scotland.

We know from the evidence that, in general, healthy women have healthy babies. So we must ensure that women are encouraged and supported to improve their health before and through pregnancy. Action to improve diet, reduce smoking and alcohol consumption and to improve the rate of breastfeeding are important if we are to give babies a healthy start in life.

Women and their partners want a healthy baby. They need timely, relevant and easily accessible information to help them make the choices they face. They want consistent support and advice and, wherever possible, continuity of care. And women want for themselves and their baby a service that is safe, responds to their individual needs and is of the highest possible quality.

So we aim now to create a truly modern, responsive 21st Century maternity service that centres on women and their families and reflects also the values and needs of the professionals who provide care.

We recognise that the Framework will have implications for workforce planning in maternity services. I will therefore be commissioning the Scottish Integrated Workforce Planning Group to consider suitable workforce options for maternity services that take account of both local needs and the broader requirements of the NHS workforce as a whole.

Health spending continues to increase year on year but, to deliver real improvements in the quality of care, that increased investment must be matched by reform. So in implementing this Framework, NHS Boards and NHS Trusts must continue to review and re-engineer service provision to meet local needs.

I believe this Framework offers an excellent template for best practice in maternity care. It sets the pace for change. It challenges professionals, NHS Boards and NHS Trusts to meet the needs of women and their partners. Above all, it empowers women by involving them in the development of the kind of maternity care they need.

I commend this Framework to women, health professionals, NHS Boards and NHS Trusts.

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