Access our support and expertise:
HIEM Senior Improvement Lead
Every year, around 60,000 babies in the UK are born prematurely—before 37 weeks of gestation*. They face increased risks of complications, and their families often navigate complex emotional and medical journeys.
At Health Innovation East Midlands, we’re proud to lead the Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme (MatNeoSIP) across the region. Our mission is to support healthcare staff in delivering safer, more equitable care for mothers and babies—especially those born too soon.
On World Prematurity Day, Senior Improvement Lead Kate Hardiman reflects on the importance of improving care for preterm infants and highlight the progress being made across the NHS.
Health is facing some big challenges that require the input of whole systems to solve, but when a problem is this big – where do you start?
In this blog, HIEM, Senior Improvement Lead, Kate Hardiman describes how we supported Joined Up Care Derbyshire to reduce harm from opioids for local patients, using a 7-step approach to working across whole systems.
The project, which has been shortlisted for the HSJ Patient Safety Awards, trained 80 Live Well With Pain practitioners, potentially saved five lives, and saw 131 fewer people prescribed high dose opioids and 306 fewer people with chronic opioid use.