NHS Resolution recently published an evaluation of its Maternity Incentive Scheme (MIS) setting out the key findings from years one to six of the initiative, including that MIS has provided clarity for trusts on where best to focus efforts to improve maternity and neonatal care.
MIS was launched by NHS Resolution in 2018 to help drive improvements in maternity and neonatal care in NHS trusts across England with the aim of improving care and outcomes for babies, women and families. The scheme offers a financial incentive for trusts that demonstrate implementation of core safety actions, defined at system level.
The evaluation report states that:
- MIS has raised the profile of maternity and neonatal safety at trust board level and provided staff with leverage to press for safety improvements.
- compliance with MIS safety actions has steadily improved over time. In the first year, 53% of trusts achieved full compliance; by Year 6, this had risen to 84%.
- the introduction of external verification of trusts’ compliance with safety actions has provide independent assurance.
- national and local-level participants agreed that MIS’s financial incentive strongly influences
organisational behaviour to improve maternity and neonatal care in trusts MIS aims to address the significant human impact of avoidable harm.
NHS Resolution says the evaluation, which was completed in partnership with The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute, was undertaken to understand how MIS is experienced by stakeholders, to review its processes and to assess the scheme’s impact on safety, compliance and outcomes.
Whilst direct attribution of safety outcomes to individual actions remains complex, the evaluation concludes that MIS has reinforced national maternity and neonatal safety priorities and supported staff with their local business cases for improvements.
Maternity and neonatal care remain a key priority for the NHS, with the recommendations of the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation due to be published in June 2026, which will then be used by the government’s National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce to develop an action plan. Under the action plan trusts will likely be required to demonstrate they have taken further significant steps to ensure they are providing safe maternity and neonatal care and so will need to prepare for increased scrutiny of their maternity and neonatal care systems.
