![]() ![]() This study aimed to explore women’s (i) experiences of maternity care as collaboratively provided by midwives and health visitors, and (ii) their perspectives of how their maternity care can best be provided by these healthcare professionals together. Therefore, women’s experiences of collaborative care as provided by midwives and health visitors are key to better understanding their care needs and service provision more generally. For example, relational factors such as mutual trust for each other and healthcare professionals’ limited control of financial or structural constraints imposed by the healthcare system. At the deepest level – the real – are the generative mechanisms causing the observable events. Midwives’ and health visitors’ professional competencies as applied to care provision represent the actual level these influence the empirical, and are not always observable. For example, a woman observes a midwife and a health visitor communicating about her care. In the context of midwife-health visitor collaboration, the empirical level concerns the directly observable, perceived and experienced. This asserts that reality is comprised of three levels: the empirical, the actual, and the real. Ĭritical realism is a philosophical approach that allows for the understanding of the layers shaping individuals’ experience and reality, and the links between these. Continuity of care is also encouraged in maternity care guidance set out by the National Health Service (NHS) in England. A recent systematic review of continuity of care with doctors demonstrated that greater continuity of care (defined as repeated contact between a patient and a doctor) was associated with lower mortality. Sandall and colleagues have suggested that further research on women’s experiences of continuity of care models, which include various health professionals working together, is needed. Women’s involvement in the exploration of interprofessional collaboration care models in maternity is limited (e.g. ![]() It is therefore important to identify women’s experiences of midwife-health visitor collaboration, and explore how they envisage maternity services to be developed. Conversely, poor interprofessional collaboration is associated with negative maternity care experiences, and can result in failures in care. Previous research suggests that collaborative maternity care models can have a positive impact on health outcomes, including breastfeeding, mental health and smoking cessation. ![]() ![]() geographical distance, limited resources) and individual factors (e.g. Our recent systematic review of the international evidence on interprofessional collaboration between midwives and health visitors showed that collaboration in practice varied, and is influenced by interlinked structural (e.g. Specifically, Public Health England and Department of Health (UK) partnership pathway outlines this working relationship such that midwives and health visitors should be communicating with each other during and after pregnancy regarding the health and wellbeing of mother and baby. These groups share overlapping professional remits both antenatally and postnatally and are encouraged to work together. In the UK, midwives and health visitors (specialist community public health nurses) are key maternity care providers. The mounting evidence concerning the importance of one’s early childhood to the rest of the lifespan puts interprofessional collaboration high on government agendas as a strategy for addressing women’s and their families’ unmet needs and improving outcomes. According to the World Health Organization, interprofessional collaboration occurs when different healthcare professionals work together to improve care. Interprofessional collaboration is widely promoted across health services, including maternal and child health services, both in the UK and internationally. ![]()
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