A question from our community team... on the E3 questionnaire one of the questions asks who did the woman see first regarding her pregnancy, options include, GP, Midwife and other. For self-referral women I have always put midwife, as do some of my other colleagues, however some other midwives tick the other box and write self-referral. Could you clarify for us what we should do so that we are all doing the same? PS - Should we offer/add another answer 'self-referral'?
Paul Seymour
This is the NHS Digital definition of the First Contact:
The point at which a mothers contacts an NHS care provider to access antenatal/pregnancy care and gets referred to the Maternity Care. This contact may be with a healthcare professional although not exclusively. This gives the woman an opportunity for information giving so that the mother is able to make informed decisions about her pregnancy care.
Examples of first contact:
A mother making an appointment with a GP and the GP referring the mother to maternity services. First Contact will be the date the GP meets the mother
We put midwife at Pennine
It really does depend on who the woman sees first. NHS Digital recognise that it won't always be a midwife so on our choice of answers we have Midwife/GP/Health Visitor/Midwifery Health Trainer/Other. Nearly all of our women are seen first by a Midwifery Health Trainer prior to booking and they will discuss diet, alcohol, smoking and general health etc. They do the first CO screen on this appointment and will discuss the stop smoking service. We don't use the answer self-referral because this isn't appropriate.
At Medway we usually put Midwife as that is who she sees first or GP if she has had an appointment to confirm her pregnancy. I would say that adding a self-referral option isn't an appropriate answer; it just tells us how she referred, not who she saw first.