Maternity data sharing in Great North Care Record expands to Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trusts.

Pregnant person holding baby bump

The Great North Care Record (GNCR) and the North East and North Cumbria Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS), have delivered the ‘first of type’ integration with the electronic patient record (EPR) in maternity services, BadgerNet.

In early September, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust became the second Trust to start sharing maternity data into GNCR, following Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust in July 2024.

Gayle Thompson, Digital Midwife at Northumbria Healthcare, leads on the digitisation of maternity and antenatal records and communication. She provides antenatal care across North Tyneside and Northumberland.

Photo of Gayle Thompson, Digital Midwife at Northumbria Healthcare

“We love the fact we can share key details and facts about a pregnancy with other healthcare providers. It can save time for clinicians and patients. They don’t have go searching for those pregnancy details across a multitude of various IT systems. It’s particularly important and vital to make maternity data available for those high-risk pregnancies and for those that will have to move between hospitals based on their clinical needs.”

“There’s nothing more important than safeguarding mums and babies,” adds Gayle.

In October, North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust also started sharing maternity data into GNCR. 

Photograph of Nicola Mallinson, Digital Midwife at North Cumbria Integrated CareNicola Mallinson, Digital Midwife at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC), led on the GNCR integration on behalf of Maternity Services which covers Cumberland Infirmary, Penrith Community Hospital and West Cumberland Hospital.  

“It is a real achievement for NCIC to be sharing maternity data with the Great North Care Record. It will ensure professionals have quick access to relevant pregnancy and birth information and lead to improved multi-disciplinary working and effective communication improving care to women, babies and their families,” explained Nicola.

This collaborative partnership will significantly support health and care professionals and importantly delivers safer, better care for patients and the public. 

Staff who care for pregnant people receiving their care at the Trust will now benefit from being able to securely see pregnancy data, across the North East and North Cumbria. 

This shared care data connection provides core pregnancy data and is part of an ambitious region-wide programme.

Improvements along the way

The GNCR team are onboarding each Trust’s maternity service one by one and aim to have both South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust both sharing by the end of 2024.

As each Trust onboards, there may be minor changes and improvements identified.

On Tuesday 8th October 24, the following improvements will be made available to all users who access maternity data through GNCR.

  • The pregnancy summary widget:
    The pregnancy summary widget will now only display the clinical data associated to the latest pregnancy. This reduces the amount of data previously presented in the widget and ensure the most recent / active pregnancy is shown.
  • Vaccination dose:
    The vaccination dose will be present, if recorded in the source system, within the vaccination details.
  • Baby date of death:
    In the unfortunate event of a fetal loss, the data of death is now present within the baby birth outcome, within the pregnancy summary widget. An example is shown below.
GNCR screenshot - baby birth outcome


Training and resources

GNCR training is available to support direct patient care in the North East and North Cumbria. Bespoke training can be arranged upon request. Please email us to book: nuth.gncr@nhs.net.

Regular training sessions for GNCR are available via MS Teams. Use this booking link.

If you have any feedback or if you would like to know more about GNCR, please contact a member of the team at nuth.gncr@nhs.net.