A Maternity Voices Partnership (MVP) is a NHS working group: a team of women and their families, commissioners and providers (midwives and doctors) working together to review and contribute to the development of local maternity care.
The work of the National Maternity services Partnership network can be seen here
http://nationalmaternityvoices.org.uk/
National Maternity Voices provide support and advice to service user chairs of Maternity Voices Partnerships. NMV promotes awareness of good practice in setting up and developing MVPs among commissioners and provider staff of maternity services in England. This is to ensure:
The first meeting of Coast and Country MVP was held on 10 December at Briercliff Children’s Centre in Scarborough, it was run by Matron Freya Oliver; Community team leader Lynda Fairclough and Scarborough Ryedale CCG was represented by Sue Peckitt, Associate Director of Nursing.
The Aim is to rotate these meetings between Scarborough, Bridlington and Malton and they will be 3 monthly. The next meeting will be at Malton maternity unit on 8 March 10-12.
The meeting was attended by four mums who discussed what worked well in their maternity care Journey and what could be improved.
Some excellent feedback was given in relation to SCBU, triage and relationships with Midwives. It was felt we could develop further birth planning or birth choices discussion opportunities.
Some feedback about the content of parent education group’s sessions was given and all present felt the development of a postnatal group would be beneficial. More information about the physical effects on a woman postnatally would be helpful.
The York and Scarborough Bumps 2 Babies’ Facebook page was discussed and it was felt the profile of this could be increased.
Some feedback was given regarding the style of questioning used by Midwives around emotional wellbeing could be Improved.
Discussion took place around partners being able to stay overnight. The limitations of the current accommodation were highlighted and this leads to partners not being able to stay overnight.
Discussion also took place around increasing information for parents related to storage facilities and what to bring into Hospital. It is hoped the new antenatal online education and virtual tour will help with this, and this should be available in the New Year.
The team from Maternity services will look at all the individual comments given at the meeting and identify how we can improve around the broad themes above.
If you would like to be involved in the next meeting please email Lynda.fairclough@york.nhs.uk or Freya.oliver@york.nhs.uk
We will be looking for a service user to chair these meetings going forward so any interested women should contact as above.
