Maternity care organisation celebrates award recognition

The Perinatal Institute, a national not-for-profit organisation set up to enhance the safety and quality of maternity care, is celebrating success after winning the 2021 Queen 's Award for International Trade for Outstanding Term Growth in overseas markets over the last three years.

The awards reception took place at Windsor Castle, attended by Emily Butler, midwifery programme manager at the institute.

On her visit, Emily Butler said: “It was an honour to accept the award in the presence of HRH Prince Charles, in recognition of the hard work and dedication of clinicians across the globe who are improving growth assessment for unborn babies and striving for better outcomes in pregnancy ”.

The Lord Lieutenant John Crabtree, ex Chamber president, visited the institute personally to officially hand over the scroll and award on behalf of the Queen.

Receiving the award, Professor Jason Gardosi, executive director of the Institute, said: “This award belongs to our hard working multi-professional team who rose to the challenge to adapt a program we first developed for the NHS, to also be effective in completely different environments ”.

The award comes after the institute 's successful development of their Growth Assessment Protocol (GAP) software and training programme which, having been a major success in NHS hospitals across the UK and winning them a Queen 's Award for Innovation in 2016, has been introduced internationally. The Perinatal Institute is only the second company in the West Midlands to receive two consecutive Queen 's Awards.

The GAP programme includes training and online software (GROW App) which shows the expected growth of each baby, customised according to the individual mother 's characteristics, including her ethnic origin.

The global version of the software can adjust for over 120 ethnic groups. Previously, a one-size-fits-all approach resulted in less effective methods of monitoring the baby 's growth during pregnancy.

The GAP software and training programme has helped reduce NHS stillbirth rates to their lowest ever levels.

This breakthrough has led the training programme to be introduced globally, including maternity units in Germany, the Middle East, India, Malaysia and Australasia.

In New Zealand, where the GAP programme is funded as a national initiative, it has already resulted in demonstrable improvements in patient safety.

Pictured (left to right): Cadet Rebecca Edwards, Prof Jason Gardosi, Lord Lieutenant John Crabtree, Emily Butler.