Reports, submissions and outcomes
RACGP Response to improving maternity services in Australia
31 October 2008
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) supports review of Australia's maternity services with a view to ensure access to safe, high quality care to women before, during and after birth.
The RACGP believes that to achieve the aim of safe, high quality care to all childbearing women the following principles need to be considered:
- All roles support the safety of the woman and family
- Clarity over who leads in any particular case
- Watertight handover between care providers
- Training and ongoing education of those involved in the care of women and babies is accessible, relevant, feasible and affordable
- Care is aligned with training and experience of staff and back up is available in a timely manner
- Infrastructure is aligned with the level of care to be provided in that facility
- Indemnity covers all care provided by each team member to the extent that they provide in alignment with training, experience and back up
- Women agree with proposed strategies
The RACGP favours a team based approach to maternity care in Australia. Team-based models of care should utilise the skills of all members of the team efficiently by involving them at the appropriate level of service delivery.
It is important to maximize use of the present system and make improvements to it ensuring that any changes to maternity care policy continue to provide safe care for mothers and their babies.
The RACGP cautions against approaches that could lead to unintended consequences such as reducing access to care or safety of mothers and babies.
Related files
RACGP Response to improving maternity services in Australia (529KB)
To download files on a PC: Right click the link and select 'Save Target As'.
To download files on a Mac: Hold Ctrl, click the link and select 'Download link to disk'.
Help with viewing files