"There needs to be a person to speak to when..."

We are very sorry to read about your experience with our maternity service so far at Medway. We are keen to provide an efficient and patient centred approach to maternity care and are always enthusiastic about developing the service to make it easily accessible to service users. Two years ago we reviewed how service users access midwifery care and realised that trying to contact the service within office hours was often not feasible for everyone. We set up the online referral form so that service users could refer themselves to Medway in there own time and access midwifery support early. The referrals come to one central location and are checked by one person who sends them out to the appropriate team of midwives dependant on the area in which the patient lives. This system works extremely well, and the service user is contacted within 10 working days of the referral. We understand that some people feel uncomfortable about using an IT system to access care and for that reason we still have a telephone booking line if that is the preferred method of communication, however this is an answer machine message which allows users to leave their contact details, which are in turn passed onto the relevant team on a daily basis, much like the online referral. We apologise in this instance the system failed for you and appreciate your feedback. We are always keen to improve our services anywhere we can. Suzanne Freeman Lead Midwife for Antenatal Services 01634 830000 X6727