An update on the work of NHS Resolution’s Early Notification scheme

By Maternity & Midwifery Forum

Online event

Overview

The Midwifery Forum’s weekly live stream, brought to you by MATFLIX – every Wednesday, 7-8pm, UK

Series 18 - Episode 4: An update on the work of NHS Resolution’s Early Notification scheme

The Early Notification (EN) Scheme is a key initiative towards achieving the delivery of safer maternity care, providing a more rapid, caring response to families in cases of severe harm and supporting a learning culture.

This session will explore the NHS Resolution’s Early Notification (EN) scheme and share learning and resources that are useful for clinical practice.

The scheme proactively investigates specific brain injuries at birth for the purposes of determining if negligence has caused the harm. We then aim to investigate the claim sooner to provide earlier resolution for families. The EN team have published two key learning reports and you will have an opportunity to hear more about the reports and the work of the scheme during the presentation.

Hosted by:

Sue Macdonald

Contributions from:

Annette Anderson – Head of Early Notification Clinical Team
Lynn Tilley – Early Notification Regional Lead (London)
Kelly Inglis – National Midwifery Clinical Fellow
Liz Pells – Early Notification Family Liaison and Mediation Lead

Biographies

Annette Anderson

Annette Anderson is an experienced senior midwife currently leading the Early Notification clinical team at NHS Resolution. The Early Notification Scheme is an initiative focused on resolving claims earlier for babies who have sustained an intrapartum brain injury.

Her leadership portfolio includes setting the vision and strategy for clinical triage and preliminary review of cases reported to the Early Notification Scheme, developing the Maternity Voices Advisory Group to ensure families’ voices are central to the process, and leading work that supports learning from incidents and claims to help Trusts implement improvements in patient safety.

Annette has an extensive background in NHS hospital and healthcare services and currently leads key national workstreams impacting maternity services across England. She works closely with stakeholders to reduce avoidable harm in maternity care, aligned with the government ambition to halve rates of stillbirth, neonatal and maternal deaths. Previous roles at NHS Resolution include providing clinical leadership for the Maternity Incentive Scheme.

She is highly skilled in midwifery, incident investigation, clinical risk management, governance and patient safety, as well as maternity policy and strategy. Annette holds a Master’s degree in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management from the University of Leicester, awarded with distinction.

Lynn Tilley

Lynn Tilley is the Safety and Learning Lead within the Early Notification Team at NHS Resolution, having joined on secondment in 2020 and substantively from 2021.

Her role involves working closely with Obstetric and Neonatal Fellows to complete clinical reviews of Early Notification cases, assessing the care provided and identifying key themes for learning. She contributes to the development of illustrative case stories, published on the NHS Resolution website, to support clinician learning, and is also involved in creating an immersive e-learning module based on these cases.

Lynn helped establish the Maternity Voices Advisory Group, which brings together feedback from families via representative stakeholders to inform service improvement. As regional lead for London, she supports Trusts by sharing learning from thematic analyses of incidents reported to the Early Notification Scheme, helping to inform quality and safety initiatives. She has also presented learning from her work at NHS Resolution at a clinical negligence conference, including updates on changes to the Early Notification Scheme.

She is passionate about her work at NHS Resolution and values the opportunity to contribute to learning, improvement and safer maternity care.

Kelly Inglis

Kelly Inglis is a senior NHS midwifery leader with over a decade of frontline experience, now specialising in governance, patient safety and clinical investigations.

She leads maternity improvement and assurance within a Trust under national oversight, working closely with NHS England and NHS Resolution. Kelly has led large-scale investigations, developed robust governance systems, and established a dedicated maternity quality and safety team.

Currently completing an MBA and Senior Leader Apprenticeship, she also provides expert insight into standards of care and breach of duty in maternity clinical negligence cases.

Liz Pells

Liz Pells is an experienced Family Engagement Leader, Senior Midwife and Patient Safety Investigator, passionate about working with families, maternity and neonatal colleagues, and stakeholders to improve outcomes and experiences across healthcare.

She currently works within the Early Notification Team at NHS Resolution as the Family Liaison and Mediation Lead.

Liz is a kind and compassionate leader with a strong track record in transformational change and in building trusted relationships with families, colleagues and partner organisations.

With extensive experience in midwifery, she has held senior clinical and leadership roles across both acute and community maternity services. She is also a skilled patient safety investigator, using a systems-based approach to improve safety in maternity and newborn care, and has developed accessible resources to improve the quality and understanding of investigation reports for families, NHS Trusts and other organisations.

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