Liverpool Mulago Partnership

At a glance

Fields of work: Maternal and Child Health

UK Link Partner: NHS Trust
UK Link Partner County: Merseyside

Developing Country Link Partner: Public Hospital/Clinic, Teaching Hospital
Developing Country Link Partner: Uganda

Year Established: 2008

Link Details

Dr Andrew Weeks, a Consultant Obstetrician at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, set up The Liverpool Mulago Partnership (LMP) in December2008 (www.liverpoolmulagopartnership.org). The partnership is evaluated independently by Professor Louise Ackers and Dr Carol Porter, both from the University of Liverpool Law school. LMP has been established to promote mutual improvements to maternal and infant healthcare between the largest maternity units in Europe and Africa. It involves the build up of a sustainable and effective disciplinary partnership between Liverpool Women’s Hospital and the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Mulago Hospital in Uganda. Both hospitals have extensive resources that they can offer the partnership: staff in Mulago have enormous experience in treating conditions that are now rarely seen in the UK whilst the Liverpool staff are skilled at prevention and high technology therapies. So far 8 individuals have travelled between the centres, allowing staff from Mulago to observe maternity care in a first world environment and to develop ideas about how this may be transferred to Mulago. Conversely, staff from Liverpool have had the opportunity to help manage women with conditions that are rare in UK practice and to share in the complex process of clinical problem solving and service development. The partnership has already begun to drive change in Mulago in areas such as postoperative recovery, midwifery education, protocol development and triage of obstetric patients.