Developing a set of consensus indicators to support maternity service quality improvement: using Core Outcome Set methodology including a Delphi process

OBJECTIVE: To develop a core metric set to monitor the quality of maternity care. DESIGN: Delphi process followed by a face‐to‐face consensus meeting. SETTING: English maternity units. POPULATION: Three representative expert panels: service designers, providers and users. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Maternity care metrics judged important by participants. METHODS: Participants were asked to complete a two‐phase Delphi process, scoring metrics from existing local maternity dashboards. A consensus meeting discussed the results and re‐scored the metrics. RESULTS: In all, 125 distinct metrics across six domains were identified from existing dashboards. Following the consensus meeting, 14 metrics met the inclusion criteria for the final core set: smoking rate at booking; rate of birth without intervention; caesarean section delivery rate in Robson group 1 women; caesarean section delivery rate in Robson group 2 women; caesarean section delivery rate in Robson group 5 women; third‐ and fourth‐degree tear rate among women delivering vaginally; rate of postpartum haemorrhage of ≥1500 ml; rate of successful vaginal birth after a single previous caesarean section; smoking rate at delivery; proportion of babies born at term with an Apgar score <7 at 5 minutes; proportion of babies born at term admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit; proportion of babies readmitted to hospital at <30 days of age; breastfeeding initiation rate; and breastfeeding rate at 6–8 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: Core outcome set methodology can be used to incorporate the views of key stakeholders in developing a core metric set to monitor the quality of care in maternity units, thus enabling improvement. TWEETABLE ABSTRACT: Achieving consensus on core metrics for monitoring the quality of maternity care.