Perceptions of Consent for Operative Vaginal Delivery: A Service Evaluation Introduction Conclusions Methods • Survey disseminated over social media by the Oxfordshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, as well as by poster and QR code on delivery suite and the postpartum ward • Target population: Women and birthing people who had experienced operative vaginal delivery (forceps or ventouse) over the last two years • Survey responses collected from February-August 2024 • Free text response were analysed with inductive thematic analysis Question 1: When did you have your baby? 88 responses Question 2: Why did you have an assisted birth? 86 responses Question 3: What were you told about forceps- or vacuum-assisted delivery before you went into labour? 84 responses. Figure presents themes from free text responses Results Question 7: When your baby was being born (during labour), did you feel like the doctors or health professionals around you gave you the right amount of information about the risks and benefits of assisted delivery? 88 responses Question 8: If you would have liked to receive more information about the risks and benefits of assisted delivery, what kind of information would you have wanted to receive? 59 responses. Figure presents themes from free text responses. Question 6: Why did you answer the previous question (5) the way you did? 76 responses. Figure presents themes from free text responses Question 4: During your pregnancy, where did you get information about assisted delivery (forceps or vacuumassisted)? 88 responses Question 5: Would you have preferred to have 1) more, 2) less, or 3) the same amount of information given to you about assisted delivery during your pregnancy, before you were in labour? 88 responses Question 9: When your baby was being born, did you feel the doctors or health professionals offered you enough time to think about the risks and benefits of assisted delivery? 88 responses Question 10: If you answered no to the above question, could you explain why you felt you needed more time? 49 responses. Figures presents themes from free text responses. Question 11: ‘During labour, do you think any of the following tools would have helped you make your decision about assisted delivery? 84 responses Question 12: Do you think any of the above tools would have made things harder or been unhelpful? If possible, please specify why. 64 responses. Figures presents themes from free text responses. • In the UK, a woman gives birth every 54 seconds, many for the first time. • Despite the recognised importance of informed consent in medical practice, some women continue to report they are asked to consent to procedures which they say they do not fully understand. • Our project aims to interrogate the patient experience of consent for operative vaginal delivery in a tertiary NHS maternity unit and make suggestions to improve information delivery. • Our results suggest many women retrospectively wished for more antenatal information about operative vaginal delivery. • Some are receiving information on operative vaginal delivery from sources which are not always verified (eg social media), which could lead to misinformation. • We propose to support conversations around consent to operative vaginal delivery during labour via more structured antenatal discussions on assisted delivery. This could be in a midwife appointment. • Given the pressures faced by NHS staff, further research is needed to understand the challenges that could be faced when implementing more uniform discussion of operative vaginal delivery in the antenatal period.