ACT Health has launched a 10-year plan to support its workforce and improve public maternity services.
Unveiling its Maternity in Focus: The ACT Public Maternity System Plan 2022-2032, ACT Health said the Plan would deliver system and service level changes that supported the needs of individuals who used the public maternity systems and the multidisciplinary health professionals who worked within the system.
“Through this plan, there will be ongoing involvement with consumers, community sector and health professionals to evolve the maternity system to meet the ongoing needs and desires of consumers and health professionals,” Health said.
“In the next four years, the ACT Government will commence implementation of Maternity in Focus through the Maternity in Focus: First Action Plan 2022-2025,” it said.
“The actions identified for implementation over this timeframe will deliver essential reform, create the foundation to evolve the public maternity system and deliver on Government commitment to delivery better care when and were people need it.”
Welcoming the System and Action Plans, Minister for Health, Rachel Stephen-Smith said the Plans would address national and local strategies in addition to recommendations from the Legislative Assembly’s Inquiry into Maternity Services in the ACT.
Ms Stephen-Smith said 58 actions would be implemented under ACT Health’s First Action Plan to achieve 21 goals under four themes:- Consumers, Best Practice Maternity Care, Clinical Governance and Data, and Workforce.
She said this would include delivering workforce planning for maternity services across the system, establishing new scholarship opportunities for midwives and doctors, and boosting northside maternity services.
The Minister said the Government had also agreed with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation to fast-track negotiation on a ratios framework for midwifery and nursing in maternity services – “making the ACT the first jurisdiction to commit to ratios in maternity.”
“We’ve also heard from both families and midwives that demand for midwife-led continuity of care exceeds current capacity,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.
“While the ACT currently has the highest proportion of births in the public system delivered through the continuity model, the Maternity in Focus Plan commits to a target of at least 50 per cent of women and pregnant people having access to this model of care by 2028.”
ACT Health’s 53-page Maternity in Focus System Plan can be accessed at this PS News link and its 14-page First Action Plan at this link.
