GOALPOSTs: Scoring for quality improvement in obstetric anaesthesia

10 October 2022

The Group of Obstetric Anaesthetists in London are setting up a multicentre audit project to measure adherence by participating hospitals to key obstetric anaesthetic quality indicators, and allow hospitals to benchmark against one another.

The GOALPOSTs (Group Of Obstetric Anaesthetists in London: Process, Outcome and Structure Targets) project will focus on five quality indicators. These are: percentage of women having a caesarean delivery with general anaesthesia; percentage of accidental dural puncture; percentage of women requiring conversion of regional anaesthesia to general anaesthesia at caesarean delivery; percentage of epidurals for labour analgesia provided within 30 minutes of being requested; and the percentage of labour analgesia epidurals that need to be replaced.

The project is being led by Matt Wikner, a consultant obstetric anaesthetist at the Royal London Hospital, who has published and lectured widely on the topic of quality improvement in obstetric anaesthesia. Matt is a member of the OAA Quality and Outcomes Subcommittee (QOSC).

Jim Bamber, Chair of QOSC, said: “The OAA is very supportive of this project and wishes it every success. It builds on the work the OAA has done with the National Obstetric Audit Database project and our Delphi study to define useful quality indicators for obstetric anaesthesia.

"The OAA will be closely monitoring the GOALPOSTs project as it may provide a blueprint for a national project which the OAA could support."

Members who are keen to get involved should contact the GOALPOSTs team at the Royal London Hospital.

Further information on the OAA National Obstetric Audit Database and the OAA/NPEU quality indicators Delphi survey are available at here: