BARNSLEY Hospital has set up a new ‘e-midwife’ service to help ease expectant parents’ worries.

The service, which runs on Facebook, will be monitored by a qualified, experienced midwife who will respond to non-urgent enquiries via direct messaging.

The hospital’s digital midwife, Vicki Carlisle, said: “We’ll be providing all the reliable, up-to-date information people need. We’ll also regularly give health and wellbeing updates related to pregnancy.”

Vicki is a fully-qualified midwife with 13 years’ experience, who has worked at Barnsley Hospital throughout her career.

She explained: “Being ‘digital’ means I have an interest in all things technology related. This can be in relation to social media, electronic forms of communication to patients and other care professionals, our electronic record system in the trust, electronic records for women, data we produce as a maternity service and a lot more.

“Due to the current global pandemic this has been more important than ever. We have introduced video consultations between staff and patients, virtual team meetings in maternity, and support for the staff to work from home, just to name a few.”

To contact the service search for ‘Barnsley Hospital e-midwife’ on Facebook.