Evidence on the use of Birthrate Plus® to guide safe staffing in maternity services – A systematic scoping review

What is it about?

Birthrate Plus is a system used by maternity services in the UK and elsewhere to determine how many midwives are needed to provide safe and high-quality maternity care. It uses a classification system to identify more complex births and women who need higher levels of support. This paper pulls together the published evidence about this widely used tool to understand what research tells us about the benefits of using the tool, including impacts on care and cost-effectiveness. We found that most published evidence is best described as 'anecdotal' and we found no direct quantitative evidence about the costs or benefits of using the Birthrate system. However, there is some evidence that the central measure does corelate with variation in staff workload.

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Photo by Olivia Anne Snyder on Unsplash

Photo by Olivia Anne Snyder on Unsplash

Why is it important?

There is growing evidence about the consequences of inadequate staffing in maternity services. Using a tool such as Birthrate Plus can help guide staffing decisions and provide assurance that staffing is safe. However, it is important to understand whether the answers provided are correct, and that requires research to see how it works in practice. In the absence of clear evidence, any assurance based on the use of the tool could be false. More research is needed and the tool should be used as a supplement to, but not a replacement for, professional judgement.

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