WARRINGTON Hospital’s maternity unit has been named in a shortlist of the three best in the country and is aiming to be named the country’s top ward.

The Royal College of Midwives has nominated Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for the Maternity Service of the Year prize at its annual awards ceremony.

With the trust one of just three units from across the country to be shortlisted, head of midwifery Rachael Browning travelled to London last week to deliver a pitch to a panel of judges ahead of the award winners being announced in March.

She said: “Hopefully we will come first as it would be great recognition for this fabulous unit – the entire team has worked together with a sustained focus and energy and has seen a rebranded unit.

“We’ve restored patient and public confidence in a well-led, developed, proud and passionate workforce.

“From my perspective I’m immensely proud of the staff – the resilience they’ve shown has been great.”

Also a finalist in the Health Service Journal Awards last month, the maternity unit has bounced back from a 12-month period in 2014 and 2015 where 10 babies were stillborn or died in unexplained circumstances.

Ms Browning added: “We came from a position where the unit had had some negative events which were very sad.

“They were investigated and we had a number of action plans following that, and there was some learning.

“We never lost sight of the fact that some of our mums had sadly had a poor outcome, however it was really important that the unit moved on and rebuilt – we learnt lessons and made changes in practice to make our service better for the future.

“We’re proud that we’ve turned things around, we’re proud that we listened and we’re proud that we’re here today.”