Quality of Care in Maternal and Newborn Health

Quality care is the delivery of safe, effective and culturally appropriate interventions to all, in a way that their rights to respectful care are guaranteed and continuity of care across units and services is ensured. WHO/Europe supports Health 2020 which stresses that it is a human right for all people to access equitable, and good quality care, and is collaborating with regions to achieve this mission.

WHO/Europe supports countries to improve the quality of maternal and newborn health care through following activities:

• assessment and planning at the national and regional levels;
• development of evidence-based clinical guidelines;
• implementation of packages for training, monitoring and impact evaluation;
• technical support on implementation of quality standards of care;
• introduction of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity case review; and
• strengthening involvement of individuals, families and communities.

The aim is to improve maternal and perinatal health and reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity by improving access to the quality care.