Language support for childbearing women in the NHS maternity
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring multilingual communication practices in the NHS maternity system from the perspective of the service provider and service user
IRAS ID
298244
Contact name
Sabine Braun
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Surrey
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 27 days
Research summary
The strategic direction of the Department of Health involves more choice for childbearing women and for their voice to be heard, so a woman-centred approach (Cumberledge, 2017). University Hospitals Sussex forms on 1st April 2021 as an amalgamation of hospitals including these maternity units: Princess Royal Haywards Heath, Royal Sussex Brighton Hospitals, St Richards Hospital Chichester, and Worthing Hospital. This NHS Trust serves the needs of childbearing women in the Sussex area and functions under one Trust ethos “Patient First”. In the NHS maternity system, language services are procured through external industry suppliers, but these structures are still not fully understood at ground level as to how well the maternity system utilises services for all languages including minority languages. The existing midwifery and interpreting studies have separately conducted research about language support but so far have not brought both perspectives together. This study is being conducted to bring these disciplines together in a meaningful way through exploring multilingual communication practices. The gaps appear most at organisational level like the NHS maternity system (Taira et al., 2019, 2020), hence this study will address maternity stakeholders (clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), NHS maternity Trust, Midwives and women) perspective of language support.
This study hopes to consider the National Health Service (NHS) maternity setting as a means of generating theory to understand language support in midwifery care through constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006, 2017). This theoretical knowledge could help improve language support in midwifery care (Salway et al., 2016, 2020).
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
21/NS/0086
Date of REC Opinion
19 Aug 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion