The number of babies suffering brain damage during birth at Southmead Hospital has halved since doctors and midwives were urged to work closer together.

Figures compiled by North Bristol NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, show 27.3 babies in every 1,000 suffered damage at birth between January 1998 and December 1999.

But that dropped to 13.6 after new guidelines were introduced.

Fewer babies needed resuscitation at birth, down from 86.6 to 44.6 per 1,000 since the training programme was brought in at the hospital.

The team behind the guidelines has won awards for its project in the UK, Europe and America, the latest being in Florida last week.

The work involves doctors and midwives training together so they know what to do during complicated births.

The team developed a checklist to use in maternity notes to ensure everything is reported consistently.

And results are monitored regularly to ensure that any issues are picked up and dealt with quickly.

The team, led by clinical lecturer Dimitrios Siassakos, obstetrician and doctor-of-the-year winner Tim Draycott, research fellow Thabani Sibanda and midwife Cathy Winter, has passed its techniques on to other maternity units in the UK and across the world and is working on a programme for the developing world.

It is now extending its work into midwife and doctor training, so they would work together before reaching the maternity unit too.

Dimitrios said: "This wasn't about making a one-off improvement – we have now developed a surveillance system that will rapidly detect periods of deteriorating standards using readily available, routinely collected, electronic patient data.

"We are really proud to be in this unit.

"It is not just Southmead and Bristol. We want to make the whole world a safe place for mothers to have their babies."

The trust won the overall Shared Learning Award from the National Institute of health and clinical excellence (NICE) in recognition of its innovation in applying guidelines and developing monitoring systems to maintain good outcomes,

It has also been shortlisted for the British Medical Journal awards, the results of which will be announced in April.

NICE Implementation director Val Moore said: "The NICE Shared Learning Award celebrates the best real-life examples of how organisations have successfully implemented NICE clinical or public health guidance.

"On behalf of NICE, I would like to congratulate Dimitrios Siassakos and his team who are this year's overall and clinical category winner."