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As a consequence of a research-based training programme developed at the University of Bristol, the rates of perinatal hypoxia and intrapartum fetal injury in Bristol and two pilot units in Australia and the US are now among the lowest in the world. The improvements achieved in Bristol, the US and Australia have also been successfully achieved in a low resource setting in Zimbabwe.
In response to demand from maternity units across the world, the Bristol team has developed PROMPT — a PRactical Obstetric Multi-Professional Training package, which has been successfully implemented in over 20 countries worldwide. PROMPT has had a major health and welfare impact on more than a million mothers and their babies, as well as bringing substantial economic benefits and supporting international development.
Maternal health and mortality remains a major concern in the developing world. Research led by Prof Arri Coomarasamy and colleagues at the University of Birmingham has demonstrated the effectiveness of non-typical support for maternal health in low- and middle-income countries worldwide, focused on the benefits of bringing in traditional birth attendants and non-physician clinicians to support the slow process of developing more capacity amongst skilled birth attendants in these regions. Prior to this work, these individuals were considered unsafe and inappropriate to support births, even though they were conducting millions of deliveries in the developing world. Prof Coomarasamy's team's research clearly demonstrated that this is not the case. This has had a major impact on international thinking about the valuable role of non-physician support for maternal health and mortality, reflected in the latest World Health Organisation task-shifting recommendations. In these and other related issues, policy and public awareness has been further supported by Prof Coomarasamy's crucial role in Ammalife, an international maternal health charity focused on the developing world.
Volker Scheid's historical and ethnographic research of medicine in late imperial and contemporary China has significantly contributed to invigorating the Menghe medical current, a grouping of medicine physicians centred on the city of Changzhou in Jiangsu Province, China. Such renewed vitality is reflected in the activities of the the Changzhou Association for the Transmission of the Menghe medical current, the establishment of a Famous Doctor's Clinic, the foundation of a museum for medical history, creation of a memorial park, the reinstitutionalisation of apprenticeship training as well as numerous publications directed at the general public as well as academics.