We support safe staffing in the maternity workforce

The Acuity App assesses real time staffing based on the clinical needs of women and babies for intrapartum and ward areas. This enables service leaders to determine whether their unit is adequately and safely staffed throughout the day and night.

Intrapartum Acuity App

Using the Birthrate Plus® classification system the tool provides an assessment of women’s needs during their episode of care in the delivery suite and/or co-located birth centre, recorded in realtime on a 4 hourly basis and is being used to enable managers to ensure safety for women and babies during this period.

Ward Acuity App

The updated ward acuity tool is completed 6 hourly and calculates the care hours required in the next 6-hour period. In the updated tool, babies are assigned a separate category using a care needs matrix, whilst the care needs of the birthing person are determined using either an antenatal or postnatal care matrix. The tool was revised using an Expert Group methodology with contributions from and testing by several maternity units in the Midlands region, including a large tertiary level unit as well as smaller units. The qualitative data entry and summaries will be released in the New Year.

What to do if you lose internet access

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Complete and then send electronic copies of the completed sheets to [email protected]

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Testimonials

simple and easy to complete

The maternity wards have now gone live but are still in the process of training all the staff in completing the tool, therefore we are not currently 100% compliant.

The tool is far more user friendly than the previous tool, the explanations above each category make it simple and easy to complete.

Having the extended time period to complete the tool is also really useful particularly as we are unfamiliar with it at present.

By increasing the completion times to 4 times daily and the review being over a 6-hour period rather than 12 provides a more accurate reflection of the workload and staffing.

I have had a few teething concerns around usernames etc but have sorted this very quickly with the team from Birthrateplus, I am now very familiar with both setting up/amending usernames and using the tool.

Overall, the feedback is positive.

We went live with the ward tool earlier this week, So far so good. Staff have reported to me that they find the new classifications more straightforward to understandable and use.

They like how we are recording mum and baby separately.

The small window for inputting data can be a bit of a challenge particularly when workload is heavy, and time can quickly pass staff by. As senior sisters for the wards, we have been trying to go round in the day and complete together, however on the whole it seems things are going well so far.

Hopefully we can sustain a high level of compliance for our data reliability going forward.

We have got going with the updated birthrateplus ward tool a few days ago which the team so far are happy with. The new criterion for categorisation is much easier.

I am very happy with the new tool for the Antenatal and Postnatal ward. I feel it is much more accurately representing my professional opinion of the staffing situation and acuity.

We have been up and running with the updated ward Birthrateplus Acuity App on the ward and it’s working well, being very reflective of our acuity and staffing.

We have experienced some login issues, which have quickly been resolved.