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New approaches to researching and improving safety in maternity care: Call for papers to a special issue of Midwifery The adverse impact of poor quality and unsafe care on women's health and well-being is becoming an increasingly prominent concern for policy makers, clinicians and the public worldwide. In response to the global need to improve patient safety the World Health Organization formed the World Alliance for Patient Safety who have identified a global set of research priorities in relation to maternal and newborn care. However, the evidence base for many strategies remains limited and empirical evidence about the impact of many safety solutions when translated into the real world is very slim indeed. In essence, the field consists of much hope, anecdotal tales of the process of implementation but very little evidence of impact on outcome, or understanding of consequences (intended and unintended) of implementing safety solutions in complex organizations. It is clear that quality and safety is multi-disciplinary activity and that much can be learned outside of maternity and health care. In addition, the value that other theoretical perspectives can bring to illuminate understanding is great. As a result, we wish to commission a Special Issue of Midwifery which will broaden the scope of existing approaches to safety and quality of care by inviting papers which report on research that engages with work at the frontline and the organizational level, which uses methods that are sensitive to clinical and organisational complexity, and that displays awareness of the impact of the research process itself on healthcare delivery and organisation. Midwifery is an international journal and we are keen to include papers from a wide range of countries, including non-western settings. Research foci might include the implications for safety and quality of care of research conducted at the micro, macro and meso level. Methods can include, among others, ethnographic observation; evaluation of complex interventions, narrative and discourse analysis; improvement methodologies, comparative research and the use of visual methods. In policy terms the special issue aims to contribute to informing the activities and strategies to improve the safety of maternal and newborn care by drawing on different and wider perspectives. We would like to invite authors from a range of backgrounds who feel their work addresses the above methodological and contextual aims to submit their full manuscripts for consideration to Midwifery at http://ees.elsevier.com/ymidw/<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=RedirectURL&_method=externObjLink&_locator=url&_cdi=6957&_plusSign=%2B&_targetURL=http%253A%252F%252Fees.elsevier.com%252Fymidw%252F> by 1 February 2010. When asked to choose article type, authors should select ‘‘Special Issue: Safety in Maternity Care’’, and in the ‘‘Enter Comments’’ box any further acknowledgements should be inserted. All submissions should meet Midwifery author guideline. To access the full article please go to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WN9-4X6PPCV-2&_user=1545918&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000010000&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1545918&md5=477e1773b25b0fc31f39893f758c1534 Professor Jane Sandall Professor of Social Science & Women's Health Programme Director (Innovations) NIHR King's Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre Health and Social Care Research Division, King's College, London Floor 7, Capital House, 42 Weston St London SE1 3QD, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 6261/6604 e-mail:[log in to unmask] http://www.kingspssq.org.uk/ http://myprofile.cos.com/sandall http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/guys.html