Upskill.Health

Problem

NHS maternity services face intense public scrutiny, operational pressure, and workforce shortages.

At a national level, the NHS still struggles to learn from adverse events resulting in profound human impact and enormous financial cost. Despite an annual maternity budget of only £3-4bn, negligence payouts for adverse maternity events care cost over £1bn every year (NHS Resolution 24/25).

Despite national inquiries highlighting that improving safety depends on scaling effective on-the-job training, many NHS Trusts find this difficult to deliver. Releasing staff from clinical shifts is expensive and can create rota gaps that are hard to fill, while compliance tracking and reporting overwhelm on-the-job educators.

This results in an unsupported workforce that can’t always access timely, high-quality training, and women and families who too often feel unheard – despite wanting to share their experiences to improve local NHS services.

Solution

Upskill is designed to improve system learning while overcoming local operational barriers to delivering on-the-job training.

At a national level Upskill views training as a key mechanism to dynamically respond to risk and cascade learning from adverse events. Working with national partners (including MNSI), investigation insights are translated into practical, behaviour-focused ‘case studies’ that can be rapidly updated and distributed across organisations to ensure important safety lessons reach frontline staff quickly and consistently.

At a local level, Upskill makes great training deliverable within the constraints faced by NHS Trusts. Bite-sized modules fit ‘in the flow’ of clinical shifts, reducing the need to release staff and helping avoid rota gaps and backfill costs. This is bolstered by a built-in management layer to automate compliance reporting (completion, coverage, reminders, and dashboards) and reduce administrative burden for educators and clinical leaders.

At the individual level, Upskill closes the feedback loop with local communities. By amplifying local lived experiences through ‘case studies’, frontline staff learn from local service feedback, strengthening connection to women and families and supporting more consistent, equitable care.

Impact

Deployed at: 

• University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust
  • 4 x ‘Case studies’ mapped to ‘Saving Babies Lives’ curriculum
  • 120 x NHS midwives, 20 x UG Midwifery students

• King’s College Hospital NHS Trust
  • 1 x ‘Case study’ mapped to ‘Maternal Care Bundle’ curriculum
  • 80 x NHS midwives, 20 x O&G Doctors, 20 x Anaesthetic Doctors

• North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust
  • 4 x ‘Case studies’ mapped to ‘Saving Babies Lives’ curriculum
  • 120 x NHS midwives, 20 x UG Midwifery students

Capability change, practice change, and productivity outcomes are currently in live project(s) with evaluation in Spring/Summer 2026.