Improvements to Maternity services at Croydon University Hospital
Improvements have been made to the Maternity department at Croydon University Hospital, after an unsatisfactory review in 2011, including a refurbishment of the postnatal ward and birth centre as well as a maternity marketing campaign for GPs and women, thanks to two successful bids to the Department of Health. Comments from users are reviewed every month and suggestions for improvements included in an action plan. An open event was held in January this year and comments from families included educating men on child birth and supporting skin to skin. In terms of next steps, the Trust wants to work on the number of still births, which remains mainly unchanged at national level.
Croydon has a specialist Safeguarding team in place and expert obstetricians to support women presenting safeguarding, medical and socially complex cases.
The Hospital has a Best Start midwife now in place to better link start of family life with maternity.

Priorities of Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for 2016/17
In addition to the national priorities, the Croydon CCG wants, in 2016/17:

• To implement Outcomes based commissioning for over 65 as well as an Urgent Care strategy;
• To re-frame the local response to adult and children obesity, after the national obesity strategy is finalised and published;
• To review current gaps in Learning Disability service provision in the borough and develop an LD 'at risk patient' register;
• To focus Croydon Mental Health transformation on the evaluation of the impact of community services and investment as well as Dementia Services.

Update on Gateway services
This Council based service supports families to develop skills and opportunities to maximise income and achieve housing and financial stability (including accessing free school meals, appropriate benefits etc). The team is working closely with partners such as Housing, Job Centre Plus and voluntary sector groups like Mind in Croydon. Groups can contact Mark.fowler@croydon.gov.uk for more information or if they have a client to refer.

(From the Health and WellBeing Board Meeting on 13.04.16)