Every year, more than 3000 pregnant women on the Central Coast seeking publicly funded healthcare, have only one choice of where they can give birth. Central Coast Local Health District (CCLHD) maternity services themed complaints have not historically related to birthplace, however, following the closure of the midwife-only led Wyong stand-alone birth centre, complaints rose by 400% between 2020-2021.
Some of these complaints were taken directly to local members of parliament, requiring CCLHD to respond to women's dissatisfaction. This project aims to meet the needs of more women living on the Central Coast, by offering alternative publicly funded birthplace options. This means moving from the current single option to at least two options for well women, by December 2023.
Initiation began with the goal of designing a women’s centre for the Wyong hospital site. This scope changed following advice from the district’s chief executive, encouraging the project team to look at alternative models of care for birthing women. The project team designed solutions based on the diagnostics gathered, consultation and brainstorming with stakeholders both within and external to the health service, in addition to a literature review. Solutions identified and priority voted for, were for a publicly funded homebirth model, a Wyong Hospital obstetric led birth unit, and/or a stand-alone birth house. For the purpose and scope of this project, home birth model was the agreed upon solution.
Midwives supported with education and training
The project team has developed a project plan, with endorsement currently being finalised with the CCLHD executive team. Midwives have been attending education and simulation training, and provided with equipment. The district is supporting midwives to attend homebirths with the neighbouring service at Belmont Birthing Services within Hunter New England Local Health District. The project team will undertake a full evaluation, both post pilot and again at a milestone of 12 months, measuring the following outcomes:
- uptake by well women of the alternative birthplace option
- satisfaction of women using the alternative birthplace option as measured by CCLHD midwife consumer experience survey
- a 50% reduction in the number of complaints per year relating to birthplace, utilising consumer feedback data between March 2020-March 2022, compared to June 2023 - June 2024
- adverse events as reported through monthly maternity services safety and quality meetings and perinatal morbidity and mortality meetings
- a lower fiscal and environmental impact based on reduced costs and waste from women receiving their antenatal, birth and postnatal care in the community compared to the women of the same risk who birth in the current birth option.
View this project's poster from the Centre for Healthcare Redesign graduation April 2023.
