Wales to invest £7m in national digital maternity system

The Welsh government has announced a £7m investment to develop a unified digital maternity system.

The nation-wide initiative will allow mothers-to-be to access their records and receive timely messages to help ensure a healthy pregnancy and better communicate with health professionals.

The government will be investing £7m to develop the new system, which will be rolled out across the whole of Wales in the next two to three years.

Currently, all the health boards in Wales use different systems, both digital and paper based.

However, ministers say creating one national digital system will allow all the various professionals to share vital information more quickly, reducing potential complications and ensuring safe effective seamless care.

Health Minister, Eluned Morgan, said: “Several recent reviews of maternity services in Wales and the UK have called for the creation of a unified digital system.

“This new system will be safer and more efficient thanks to faster, better information sharing.

“It will also give women much more control over their maternity records and allow them to feedback to midwives and doctors much faster, via an app that will have records of all their discussions with health professionals,” she continued.

“Improvements in accuracy of data collection will also allow health boards to better plan services.”

Sue Tranka, chief nursing officer for Wales, said: “During the course of their pregnancy women will see several different midwives and doctors sometimes across different health boards, so having one all-Wales digital system will make that journey much smoother.

“It will also reduce bureaucracy and duplication, freeing up more time for those health professionals to focus on people.

“Via the app we will be able to send pregnant women health advice, reminders for things like getting their flu jab as well as important personal medical messages.”

The news comes weeks after a health board’s maternity services which were once described as “dysfunctional” were taken out of special measures, prompting ministers to investigate neonatal units.