What started as a quality improvement project by a doctor at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has developed into one of the top three women's health apps in the UK, being adopted by Local Maternity Services (LMS) across the NHS in England.
The multi-award-winning Mum and Baby app was originally developed by Dr Sunita Sharma at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust with its charity CW+ and specialist healthcare app developers, Imagineear Ltd, as part of the CW Innovation programme. This new surge of uptake means that approaching 25% of all LMSs in England will be represented in the app, enabling many thousands more users access to bespoke content, local advice and contacts.
Now in its fourth version, the innovative Mum and Baby app has evolved with new, clinically robust content led by North West London LMS to deliver on the ambitions of the NHS ‘Better births’ report involving mums, midwives and doctors, Royal Colleges and local authorities to provide women and their family with a single source of trusted, clinically evidenced and locally relevant information on pregnancy, birth and beyond, available at their fingertips.
The pandemic
The pandemic continues to impact maternity services in the UK, notably antenatal and postnatal services. With less face-to-face contact with midwives and community health team, the Mum and Baby app can help with the provision of easy to download, locally tailored and clinician-validated information.
The award-winning Mum and Baby app is now being used in almost a quarter of LMSs in England
The app also includes almost real-time updates of Public Health England's advice on COVID-19 for pregnant women and new mothers, and has been included in ORCHA's COVID-19 Health App Library.
Dr Sharma says, ‘The Mum and Baby app shows how clinicians are innovating to harness digital technology to meet the evolving needs of women and their families. We're thrilled that more parents across the country can now benefit from the information in the Mum and Baby app, which also encourages mothers to make personal care plans and provides them with locally relevant health and wellbeing information they can access. We continue to work on further enhancements directly in response to recent national maternity reports and ongoing parent feedback.’
CW Innovation
The Mum and Baby app is one of 80 innovation projects within the CW Innovation programme which is jointly led by the Trust and CW+.
Rob Hodgkiss, Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust explains: ‘The Mum and Baby app is a great example of how CW Innovation supports our staff to bring their ideas to fruition; brings partner groups together for the benefit of our patients; and enables the testing and scaling of new innovations a nd technologies to roll-out across the NHS network.’