Measuring patient experience in maternity & neonatal services phase 3
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Measuring the experience of maternity and neonatal service users: development of a maternity Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) – Phase 3
IRAS ID
337456
Contact name
Sarah Smith
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 30 days
Research summary
Aim:
This phase of the project aims to validate a questionnaire, called a Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM), that can measure the experiences of women and birthing people who use maternity and neonatal services. The questionnaire will be acceptable to women and birthing people from diverse backgrounds.Background:
The NHS needs a new questionnaire to measure women and birthing people's experience of maternity and neonatal services. We have been asked by NHSE and DHSC to develop a new questionnaire that measures experience of these services. Eventually, the questionnaire will be used routinely to understand the impact of care and how to improve the quality of care.Existing questionnaires do not include the right questions to reflect women and birthing people’s experiences. Nor do they meet current scientific standards.
We need a new questionnaire that asks the right questions and can create a score that represents women and birthing people’s experiences of maternity and neonatal services.
Design and Methods:
In the first two phases of the project we have identified the main themes that describe patient experience in maternity and neonatal care. To do this, we looked at content from existing questionnaires and interviewed people with experience of maternity and/or neonatal services. We used these ideas to develop the questions for the questionnaire. Women and birthing people are currently checking that the questions are easy to understand and make sense.In phase 3 (this application), we will ask women using maternity and neonatal services in England to complete the questionnaire via smartphone and check how well the new questionnaire measures the themes described by women.
We will create a user manual that helps health professionals working in maternity and neonatal services to use and understand data from the questionnaire.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/LO/0564
Date of REC Opinion
16 Oct 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion