£1m-funded simulation laboratory aims to boost maternity training at Birmingham Women's Hospital
The unit recreates emergency childbirth scenarios so multi-disciplinary teams can train together in a risk-free environment, the NHS said.
A new simulation laboratory at Birmingham Women's Hospital, funded by a £1 million donation from fashion entrepreneur George Davies' charitable trust, is being used to recreate emergency childbirth scenarios to improve maternity training across the West Midlands, the NHS said.
The unit has been set up to allow multi-disciplinary teams to practise acute situations — from complex theatre procedures to births that occur at home or in public places — in a risk-free environment. The project comes as maternity services nationally remain under scrutiny following the Ockenden report into care at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust.
Consultant neonatologist Matt Nash, clinical director for maternity and neonatal care at the hospital, said the laboratory supports joint training for teams that routinely work together. "The Ockenden report actually outlined that teams who work together need to train together, and simulation is the absolutely right way to do that," he said.
The laboratory contains areas kitted out to mirror working wards, including a delivery room, a neonatal unit and an operating theatre. An interactive screen can place teams in different surroundings such as a theatre setting or the inside of a helicopter. Training scenarios can be adapted to include a home birth, a baby delivered in a car park and the subsequent transfer of mother and infant to the delivery room and neonatal intensive care unit. Staff in a control room set the scenario and give instructions to those working inside the lab.
"We're able to get the neonatal teams and maternity teams, obstetricians, ancillary staff, theatre staff all together to be able to run through acute scenarios, to make sure that it's as safe and effective as possible," Nash said.
The laboratory will be available to teams at Birmingham Women's Hospital and to staff from hospitals across the region. NHS officials said the facility allows staff to practise managing rare but high-risk events without exposing patients to risk.
The donation from George Davies follows his long-standing relationship with the trust. Davies began supporting the hospital in 2006 after staff saved the life of his granddaughter, Evie, who was born with a rare heart defect. He decided to make the £1 million donation after meeting advanced neonatal nurse Catherine Powell in his local pub.
Perpetual, a hospital consultant who was treated at Birmingham Women’s Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, described the new facility as reassuring. She was hospitalised and placed in an induced coma in 2020; her twins, Osinachi and Sochika, were delivered by caesarean section at 26 weeks. "This is an added advantage to training, which we didn't have before. So I think personally, as a mum, that gives me huge reassurance," she said.
Davies said he planned to continue supporting the trust. "There's not a person I've met that I've not been impressed with — a nurse or a doctor," he said. "I think the biggest satisfaction to me in life now is helping people."
NHS and hospital officials said the laboratory is intended to strengthen clinical skills, teamwork and communication in emergency maternity care and to help embed the kind of joint training recommended in independent reviews of maternity services. The facility will be incorporated into ongoing training programmes for obstetric, neonatal and ancillary staff across the region.
