IDEAS & RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING INDUCTION OF LABOUR PRACTICE

At the 2022 BICS conference in London, Sara Kenyon (University of Birmingham) and Sharon Morad (Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust) ran a workshop to explore how maternity units around the country were coping with the recent huge increase in inductions. The interest was so great in the topic that an Induction of Labour Community of Practice was formed. Webinars were held through 2023 and a formal meeting was held in January 2023 to share units' quality improvement projects. These have now been written up below to give each of us inspiration and maybe some answers, with the aim of ensuring the women can be induced safely, without undue delay and with good outcomes for both mother and baby. The total publication can be read through the link below, or in sections online.

Dr Susie Crowe, President of the British Intrapartum Care Society

By: Jack Hamer (Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust), Jane Whitehurst (Public Contributor), Fiona Cross-Sudworth (University of Birmingham), Sara Kenyon (University of Birmingham) 

• Project 1 - BRAIN: a decision aid to promote better shared decision making
• Project 2 - Parent Education
• Project 3 - A decision aid and information leaflet for women

• Project 1 - Increasing outpatient induction
• Project 2 - Creating a pre-induction clinic
• Project 3 - Co-design of the induction environment
• Project 4 - IOL team and scheduling of appointments

• Project 1 - A pre-admission Red-Amber-Green (RAG) tool
• Project 2 - Employing an IOL flow and capacity co-ordinator
• Project 3 - An IOL oversight board on labour ward

• Project 1 - A Red-Amber-Green (RAG) tool for women awaiting transfer to labour ward
• Project 2 - Introducing 'Safe Gestational ranges' for IOL
• Project 3 - A midwife-led IOL pathway
• Project 4 - A pre-induction clinic

• Project 1 - Text messaging and You-Tube for communication
• Project 2 - IOL within the electronic patient record
• Project 3 - Integrating an IOL RAG rating score into a Maternity Information system
• Project 4 - Creating a virtual outpatient induction ward