Nottingham University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (NUH) launched BadgerNet EPAGU in 2024. We caught up with the team to reflect on their maternity software journey and understand how the system has supported their Early Pregnancy and Acute Gynaecology Unit (EPAGU) over the past year and a half.

Serving more than 2.5 million people across the region through the Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital, NUH delivers a high volume of maternity and early pregnancy care each year.

With this demand, clinicians need timely, accurate information to provide safe, compassionate care.

Procuring BadgerNet EPAGU in 2024

When NUH procured BadgerNet EPAGU, the goal was to strengthen communication between departments, move away from paper-based processes and create a more connected experience for both staff and patients. NUH went live with EPAGU in December 2024, helping teams access early pregnancy information easily and support continuity of care across services.

Reflecting on the Healthcare System Software Journey

We spoke with Kirsty Staniforth, a specialist nurse and other staff members from NUH to explore what has changed since go-live, the impact the system has had on day-to-day workflows and what they have learnt along the way.

How has communication evolved between the Maternity and Early Pregnancy departments since go-live?

“EPAGU documentation can now be easily accessed by the Maternity department through switching into the EPAGU module or using the Visit Summary PDFs,” said Kirsty Staniforth, a specialist nurse at NUH.

“Maternity and Early Pregnancy triage leads are also in the process of training Midwives working on our Maternity Advice Line to use the EPAGU module to document their early pregnancy conversations with women so that continuity can be ensured,” she added.

What logistical challenges did the departments face while using a paper-based system and how have you overcome these issues?

“Prior to BadgerNet, patient notes would have to be physically located to enable documentation and care planning,” Kirsty said, explaining how “staff often used to have problems with duplication of notes as the original set could not be located.”

She went on to add that “the Early Pregnancy triage nurse is based in an office on a different floor of the hospital so they were previously unable to review history for patients calling the Advice Line as it would be unfeasible to leave the office for every patient and the notes may be stored away.”

“With BadgerNet EPAGU, the patient’s history and plans can be seen and updated from anywhere in the hospital,” Kirsty said. “Sets of paper notes do not have to be tracked or stored, and therefore admin time has improved as they don’t have to locate notes when patients attend or prep notes for clinic. Illegible documentation is no longer an issue, and it is easy to identify who has reviewed the patient.”

How has the adoption affected reporting accuracy and information security?

“Digital documentation has improved record security as notes cannot be left in inappropriate places, and access to records requires secure trust log ins,” Kirsty said.

She added that “audits can take place more quickly as collating of paper notes is no longer required.”

How has the go-live influenced the efficiency of clinical communication and decision-making processes, and how has this affected collaboration between staff?

“Having quick and easy access to BadgerNet means when patients call for results or plans, junior colleagues can inform them if a senior colleague has already documented a plan,” Kirsty explained.

“Before, the juniors were often too busy to locate notes to pass on this information, which in turn created more work for the specialist nurses and meant the patient had to wait longer.”

How would you describe your experience with System C?

“System C’s Go-Live support was good,” Kirsty said. “We accessed remote support for a week during the Go-Live period, and there were quick responses when we had issues in the initial weeks. We now have regular meetings with System C in which the Senior Clinical Support Officer is open to listening to all queries, requests and concerns.”

Providing Post Go-Live Support to NUH

Since go-live, it has been encouraging to see how the teams at NUH have embedded BadgerNet EPAGU into their day-to-day work and continued building on the foundations already in place with BadgerNet Maternity.

We continue to support NUH with the necessary tools as they continue to refine their processes and further improve the experience for both clinicians and patients. It is clear that the progress made by NUH since go-live is just the beginning of the next stage in their journey.

Next Steps

Why not delve deeper into BadgerNet EPAGU by watching our on-demand webinar with Nikki McPhee, a Digital Midwife at NUH.

Additionally, you can learn more about our Early Pregnancy and Acute Gynaecology Unit (EPAGU) system and its benefits in our fact sheet.

Interested in learning more about our healthcare software systems or our other maternity software? Take a look at our large collection of customer stories.

If you have any questions or require further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.