County Durham & Darlington NHS FT, North Tees & Hartlepool NHS FT and South Tees NHS FT complete regional maternity data sharing project
The Great North Care Record (GNCR) and the North East and North Cumbria Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS), have delivered the country’s first regional integration of BadgerNet, the maternity services electronic patient record EPR.
Digital sharing of maternity data provides access to up-to-date information, including risk factors, care plans and birth details, at the point of care.
In April 2025, County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees NHS Foundation Trust successfully completed phase 1 of the programme, enabling the flow of maternity data across:
- Darlington Memorial Hospital
- Friarage Maternity Centre
- James Cook University Hospital
- University Hospital of Hartlepool
- University Hospital of North Durham
- University Hospital of North Tees
In July 2024, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust became the first Trust to start sharing maternity data across the region. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust became fast followers, sharing soon after in October 2024, followed by South Tyneside & Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle Hospitals Upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust in November 2024.
Kady Calpin-Latif
Kady Calpin-Latif, digital midwife, and Desiree Burdess, digital matron and clinical safety officer, at County Durham & Darlington FT led on the integration with GNCR.
“Sharing maternity information from Badgernet into the GNCR can only improve the care and experience for birthing people
Desiree Burdess
in County Durham and Darlington. Working collaboratively ensures we are providing safe, compassionate and joined up care”, Kady explained.
Desiree adds: “Sharing maternity data across different health care settings improves clinical safety by enabling care professionals and maternity services to access a comprehensive history, leading to informed decisions, quicker interventions and reduced risks in emergency situations”.
“As clinical safety matron I see this as crucial when someone might be unable to communicate their maternity history”.
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recently formed an alliance to improve patient care and service delivery in the region. Grace Murray, digital midwife at South Tees Trust and Laura Stephenson, digital midwife at North Tees Trust continue to embrace joint working relationships and together led on the integration with GNCR.
Grace Murray & Laura Stephenson
Laura and Grace are both passionate about digital, and recently led on another exciting, award winning, digital initiate Digital Data for Mums to be.
Laura explains: "Sharing maternity data will facilitate better communication among health and care professionals, ensuring everyone involved in a pregnant persons care has access to the same information, leading to better coordination and collaboration".
Grace Murray
Grace adds: “The GNCR provides clinicians with a unique opportunity to effortlessly share vital patient information. Individual systems held by different care providers have always created a barrier, whereby patient information is not always available at the point of care. However, as more providers opt to share information via GNCR we are able to overcome this barrier, hugely improving quality and safety for staff and service users".
This collaborative partnership will significantly support health and care professionals and importantly delivers safer, better care for patients and the public.
Training and resources
- BadgerNet user guides on the GNCR website: These provide an overview of what data staff will be able to see and where the data is presented within the shared care record.
- Short video overview of how the pregnancy summary presents in GNCR.
- Testimonial videos (created in partnership with the LMNS), on why information sharing is so important:
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.
