UMHL team wins HSE Excellence Award for innovation to improve healthcare

Lavender Clinic supports women who have undergone traumatic birth experience

University Maternity Hospital Limerick has won its first ever national HSE Excellence Award for the development of a postnatal clinic that supports women who have undergone a traumatic birth experience.

The Lavender Clinic project won the national ‘Improving Patient Experience’ title in the awards, which honour examples of the great work across the health service, and encourage and inspire healthcare staff to develop and improve care and services for patients.

The Lavender Clinic is a multidisciplinary team (MDT) clinic to support women following a traumatic birth experience. It’s a weekly afternoon clinic held off-site, and since opening in April 2023 more than 50 women have been seen.

Leading the initiative is Maria Gibbons, Advanced Midwife Practitioner (AMP) and Dr Mas Mohamad, Consultant Psychiatrist of the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service (SPMHMS) at UMHL; Dr Naro Imcha, Consultant Obstetrician and Clinic Director of Maternal & Child Health, UL Hospitals Group; and Emma O’Kane, Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist. Those who meet the criteria for the referral-only clinic have access to obstetric debrief; physiotherapy assessment; birth reflection; and Birth Trauma Resolution (BTR) therapy; and liaison with consultant psychiatrist.

Maria Gibbons said: “The Lavender Clinic initiative came about from listening to our service users. The opportunity to be able to talk about their birth experience in a safe, protected space ensures that women and their partners will attend postnatal appointments and receive timely support, care and compassion from our integrated team of healthcare professionals. We’re very proud of our HSE Excellence Award which will guide us in future planning of women-centred care and hopefully inspire our colleagues to showcase the wonderful work they are also doing every day.”

Dr Naro Imcha added: “We owe our service users our gratitude for their feedback, which made it possible for us to initiate this project. The Lavender Clinic is fully dedicated to moms and dads who have experienced trauma in their obstetric journey. A multidisciplinary team of specialists have come together to provide this service to improve a whole range of better outcomes. This service also helps us to reflect on our practice, recognise and reform our service to make our patient experience even better.”

A diverse range of other innovative projects were honoured in this year’s awards, including:

• Specialised home supports for people experiencing mental health crisis
• New ways of working to support people with a rare disease
• Improved efficiency on tracking available hospital beds and theatre time

Bernard Gloster, HSE CEO, commending the nominees, said: “The dedication and commitment to delivering high quality patient care is visibly demonstrated through this year’s entries submitted by staff around the country. Each project clearly reflects our core values of care, compassion, trust and learning. Well done and thank you to all those shortlisted as well as today’s winners. It is your work that helps pave the way to a brighter future for Ireland’s health service.”

Anne Marie Hoey, HSE National Director of HR, highlighted the positive outcomes achieved. She said: “As well as providing an opportunity to celebrate the great work of staff happening every day, the Excellence Awards are an important channel to share learnings with our colleagues across the health service. Through this pooling of knowledge and expertise, the projects inspire a sense of staff pride, teamwork and collaboration that help to shape the positive culture of our organisation. This will positively impact the overall environment for our staff whilst improving outcomes for the people who rely on our care and support.”

HSE Excellence Award Winners 2023

Improving Patient Experience: Projects that demonstrate how a service was improved for service users – for example better patient access, better information for patients, and showcase transferability of this improvement.
Category Winner: University Maternity Hospital Limerick, UL
Project titled: ‘Development of a Postnatal Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) Clinic to Support Women Following a Traumatic Birth Experience: The Lavender Clinic’

Innovation in Service Delivery: Projects that implement a solution to make services better, demonstrating efficiency, sustainability and value for money.
Category Winner: South / South West Hospital Group (SSWHG)
Project titled: ‘Operationalising a Perioperative Initiative across the SSWHG’

Excellence in Quality & Patient Safety: Projects that demonstrate how staff made things better and improved the quality and patient safety for the patient/service user/client.
Category Winners: Children’s Health Ireland, Crumlin
Project titled: ‘Complex Care Coordination - Transferable Model of Care for Rare Disease’

Using a digital solution to provide a better service: Projects that utilised a digital solution in order to improve a process in a specific area.
Category Winner: Older Person and Digital Health Team, Community Healthcare Organisation Area 1
Project titled: ‘Community Healthcare Bed Utilisation Application’

Right Care Right Place Right Time – Sláintecare Integration: Project that demonstrates resilience and innovation in the Irish Health Service.
Category Winner: Sligo Leitrim Mental Health Services, Community Healthcare Organisation Area 1
Project titled: ‘Development of a Crisis Resolution Team (Mental Health)’

WATCH - Learn more about the projects here:

1. Lavender Clinic - https://youtu.be/VbYPbkMM5r8
2. Transforming Health Care with Real Time Data on Bed Utilisation - https://youtu.be/qJjOw82VSAE
3. Development of a Crisis Resolution Team (Mental Health) in Sligo Leitrim Mental Health Services - https://youtu.be/oLjDC_3QOs4
4. Complex Care Coordination - Transferable Model of Care for Rare Disease - https://youtu.be/or0jNHOI678
5. Operating a Perioperative Initiative across the SSWHG - https://youtu.be/Q5Sxk7aWej4