Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust and Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, which form the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Acute Hospital Alliance (BSW AHA), will digitise their respective maternity services by going live with System C’s BadgerNet maternity system, delivering a unified pregnancy record throughout the region.
Both Salisbury and Bath, which will go live in February 2025 and June 2025 respectively, will transition from a dual paper and digital notes system to a fully digital system, effectively streamlining the operations of the maternity units.
The change, which will be fully complete next year, ensures that staff now have immediate access to pregnancy records, solving previous challenges associated with paper-based storage, such as when patients received care from different units or were unable to bring their paper records with them.
With the record readily available to patients and staff, the integrated approach will aim to enhance patient experience and provide more informed care.
Clare Gilliland, Digital Lead Midwife at Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust said: “We’re looking forward to being able to use System C’s BadgerNet system to provide greater joined up care for our women and pregnant people.
“We were particularly interested in community functions as our midwives will be able to view the records offline in the event of no signal or wi-fi in the family home and reconnect when signal becomes available.”
Badger Notes streamlines the accessibility of pregnancy records for around 10,000 women and pregnant people across the region through a user-friendly app/portal.
Clinicians can also access real-time information and document every event, regardless of the care setting – be it at any of the three Trusts, in the community, or at home.
All three trusts will link the maternity system with its existing BadgerNet neonatal system.
Staff at the trusts will benefit from being able to access the BadgerNet single neonatal record that is used in 99.9 per cent neonatal units across the UK.
Frontline staff will be able to access the entire patient record, across different sites, whenever they need it.
Community midwives will also benefit as the system enables real-time recording of all events wherever they occur, so they are not duplicating information or missing key details back at the hospital.
Clair Murphy, Digital Lead Midwife at Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “It’s great that we’ve been able to work in partnership together as three trusts to get BadgerNet.
“This joined up approach means we can provide women, pregnant people and their families with a safe and effective service, while delivering the highest standard of maternity and neonatal care.”The ability to have a single pregnancy record was one of the main drivers for us choosing BadgerNet.
Guy Lucchi, Managing Director of Healthcare at System C, added: “Uniting records across the region marks a significant milestone for the local healthcare services and the people they serve.
“It’s been great to collaborate with the three trusts, one of which is also using System C’s CareFlow Electronic Patient Record system, to enable the transition to a fully digitised service.
“We look forward to supporting them on their journey to transforming healthcare experiences and establishing seamless care connections across the region.”
