MatriWell
NHS problem
92% of women surveyed say they were not given enough information about risks and options before making decisions about their maternity care, and 97% turn to Google or forums to make sense of what they were told. Not understanding one’s care or options contributes to fear and, in the most serious cases, to preventable harm, which costs the NHS an estimated £2.5 billion in maternity negligence claims each year. Legal reviews link many cerebral palsy claims, among the costliest to settle, to inadequate informed consent. The National Maternity and Neonatal Review now recommends that trusts listen to and document every woman’s concerns, and ensure every woman understands her risks and options, something currently only attempted through generic antenatal classes and consultations too short for consistent support.
Founder story
Joy Randolph founded MatriWell after her own experience of maternity care as a mother of three, including a life threatening complication and poor support after giving birth. She wanted to understand why good care felt like a lottery, and to find a way to make quality maternity care less dependent on luck.
ShapeCare was built on evidence. Over an eight week period, MatriWell conducted 75 one hour discovery interviews across the maternity ecosystem: mothers, midwives, obstetricians, bereavement charity leaders, racial equity leaders, and the negligence lawyers who represent families in clinical claims. Unlike much NHS maternity research, which under-represented ethnic minority and deprived communities, a significant number of mothers from these backgrounds were interviewed.
Though it’s been built with women at the centre, the core team and partners helping to develop the solution include leading clinicians, NHS innovation leaders, and bereavement charity leaders.
The solution
MatriWell’s mission is to make high quality maternity care accessible to every mother, regardless of race, location or income. Our first product, ShapeCare, is a mother facing app that helps women understand their risks and options between appointments, so they feel informed and more in control of their pregnancy and postpartum experience.
Unlike generic apps or open web searches, which often give conflicting information, ShapeCare’s content is aligned with NHS guidance and clinical practice.
Mothers can also shape their own care by giving structured feedback to their NHS trust between appointments, giving NHS leadership teams system level insight into the needs and concerns of the mothers they serve, including seldom heard groups.
Impact
For mothers, the aim is that clearer, NHS aligned information between appointments helps more women feel informed about their risks and options, and more satisfied with their care. For NHS Trusts, structured feedback captured while a woman is still in her care pathway is intended to give maternity teams earlier visibility of individual concerns, and of recurring risks across services, so they can respond sooner rather than waiting for retrospective surveys or complaints.
Modelled against the average trust’s £9.9m annual contribution to NHS Resolution, even a 1 to 10% reduction in avoidable complaints and negligence claims could save an NHS trust on average £99k – £990k a year. These savings exclude additional costs related to preventable harm such as hospitalisation, increased service demand, investigations and staff time.
The next step is a pilot with a maternity service, to test outcomes achievable within a year, as well as longer term metrics that could show increasing returns over time.