This month, RCOG Vice President for Clinical Quality, Geeta Kumar, talks about key areas of her work for the College and priorities for the year ahead.
Greetings and welcome to my first blog post as your Vice President for Clinical Quality. One of the most frequent questions I get asked by members is about the nature of my day-to-day activities in this role. I thought I would take this fantastic opportunity to introduce myself and to provide a snapshot of my work, which I hope you will find as fascinating as I do!
The work of the Clinical Quality directorate in the College is supported by three pillars: Guidance, Projects and Operations.
Although we should refrain from favouring one area over the others, those of you familiar with my background and work may notice a particular fondness for clinical guidance! I am sure many of you will be familiar with our extensive collection of publications, including our flagship Green-top Guidelines, Good Practice Papers, Consent Advice, and Patient Information products. The College has a bank of over 100 pieces of guidance on its website, freely available for use by our O&G community, professionals and members of the public, and at any given time we have over 100 products in development. I hope you can find the time to explore our online collections.
Despite my extensive experience in developing guidance with organisations like NICE and the RCOG, it is one of the most challenging aspects of my daily responsibilities. The final version of any guidance product is the result of significant effort from our expert developers and dedicated committee members, which includes valuable input from healthcare professionals and lay members from our Women’s Network. I take this opportunity to thank everyone for their dedication and for volunteering substantial amounts of their time to the College, all driven by our common goal of improving women and girls’ health globally.
Looking back at my first year in this position, I must agree with our President, who wrote in her December ’23 blog about how our first year of service as the RCOG officers has flown by. Notable publications during this period include the publication of our GTG’s on Recurrent Miscarriage, The Management of Nausea and Vomiting of Pregnancy and Hyperemesis Gravidarum and related patient information leaflets, as well as the two recently published GPP’s, one focussing on Maternity Triage and the other one on Managing Events Surrounding a Maternal Death and Supporting the Family and Staff.
All of this guidance work is done by a small but mighty team in Clinical Quality, who support the aforementioned volunteers with considerable expertise in the guidance development process. They are always looking to improve processes and the quality of our impactful and much valued resources.
The College has been associated with high quality audit and service improvement projects for many years now, with notable landmark projects like Each Baby Counts, which still influence our maternity care provision today. Currently, we host the National Maternal and Perinatal Audit which is entering a crucial year, finally receiving data for the last four years, which will allow us to look back over the whole COVID epoch and return to the annual reports that were so useful in setting areas for improvement across the maternity landscape. We also host the Tommy’s National Centre for Maternity Improvement where our digital medical device (the Tommy’s Pathway) is entering a clinical trial. Colleagues across Australia and Africa are also piloting the technology, exploring its use in different contexts. The work of the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme is about to be tested and evaluated in the final phase, which we hope will be completed in early 2025. This will bring high-quality evidence-based resources to help address the challenge of improving fetal monitoring in labour and better management of impacted fetal head at caesarean birth. All these projects involve collaboration with our clinical expertise and academic expertise from colleagues in The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, among our other partners. I’m privileged to sit on the Programme Boards for these projects, so get to hear about their progress and reflect on their potential and the real impact they have on improving maternity care.
Our President, my fellow team of Officers and I remain committed to supporting members to deliver safe, high-quality maternity care. I look forward to prioritising safety over the rest of my tenure. My team helps to coordinate the College’s response to consultations and reports across the health care setting, from HSSIB, MNSI & MBRRACE through to coroner’s reports.
We hope the new RCOG maternity safety resource hub will help colleagues to access and use the wealth of College resources, guidelines, resources and tools available.
We need to recognise and celebrate the huge contribution of the College’s work in clinical quality, but also across the domains of education, exams and policy, which have a fundamental influence on improving safety and the health care of women and girls. I also represent the College at many key partner organisations, NHS R, NHS E, to highlight a few, so we can stay relevant and up to date with the rapidly changing landscape.
This is undoubtedly an exciting year for the College and our global O&G community, as we progress with our ambitious plans around guidance, with the fruits of the translation work on patient information, new reports from the NMPA and the long awaited culmination of the ABC work. I look forward to sharing news about all of these initiatives, and the enormous benefits they afford, with all of our Members and Fellows and the wider stakeholders of the College.
As a last point, I want to reiterate the pride and gratitude I feel for the commitment and sense of belonging to the College that our volunteers continue to exhibit. Our volunteers are the backbone of our work, so please keep an eye out for any opportunities to get involved. Thank you all for everything that you do to support and advance our work, and for the incredible work you do caring for women and girls around the world.
With very best wishes,
Geeta Kumar, RCOG Vice President for Clinical Quality