Could we have a MN campaign for improved Postnatal care?

[AtYourCervix]

Reading the many threads on here it appears that Postnatal care is the most frequently complained about area of the maternity service.

In-patient stays in hospital - Women feel neglected, ignored and unsupported and Postnatal visits at home are rushed and women are 'lucky' to see a midwife 3 times.

I strongly suspect that with NHS cutbacks ths is only going to get worse and I think it is not good enough.

Ideas and opinions please.

[EasyFriedRice]

Hi Everyone! Glad to see this one is top of the board. Can we revive this campaign please!
As promised I have done the literature review: Please PM me if you would like to use this in the campaign and want a word or pdf copy.
For the moment I've put it on my blog so everyone can see it.
here

Let me know what you think!

[SuchProspects]

EFR Thanks for writing that up. It is interesting to see that, apart from the few but horrific stories of cruelty, research seems to mirror the experiences people here reported. There's really no excuse for hospitals not knowing that this needs attention.

[KatieMumsnet]

Hi Everyone and massive apologies for the delay in the update. The usual work and home shenagians , I wont bore you with, but rest assured we?ve been thinking of this thread lots.

Right ? Dept of Health (DH) meeting ? they were very engaging and interested, could relate to much of the thread, but AtYourCervix wins the gold star for correctly guessing most of this has to be done and trust and local level.

This makes a lot of sense as visiting times, ward layouts etc are all going to be difficult, but also is going to be a familiar factor in the new ?localised? NHS ? as we?re seeing on the miscarriage campaign (oh how I wish there was a big clunky lever in Whitehall we could just get pushed).

Anyhow ? they gave us some good info and we?ve had a think. Probably the best way forward is to start with one trust, see if we can get a leaflet up and running, and then share the love (or as I believe it is more commonly known ?best practice?).

In terms of how we work with the trust the DH said going through local Maternity Services Liaison Committees (there should be one for every PCT) might be a good idea (although their activity levels vary).

Is anyone a member of their local Maternity Services Liaison Committee or does anyone know a good local one? If so, is you area a good place to start?

Or does anyone want to make a bid for the first leaflet to be for their local hospital?

Once we?d agreed on the hospital and checked the trust are keen, we?d be able to put a thread on the boards asking for lots of info. about the hospital, but would also need you to do a bit of ground work and chatting to the trust.

When we have all the info., we can pull it together in a doc. ? which we can prettify and give to the trust to use. This would also be a template for other hospitals. At this point, we can also talk to NHS Choices, the main NHS website to see if it?s something they could carry.

We?re ?going live? with the next stage of our miscarriage campaign on the 10th of October so it would be great to have a feeling on the first trust we should tackle, and get started on compiling the info. a week or two after that.

Do let us know what you think

[EasyFriedRice]

Hi KatieMumsnet.
I'm on the local MSLC in Brighton. Happy to raise this as an issue with the chair and see what she says. It's a very good trust with lots of work currently going on to improve services so they might be willing to be a guinea pig!
Did you have a look at my research review?

[blondieminx]

Hi KatieMumsnet,

I'm on the Colchester MSLC. We discussed the MN Postnatal care campaign at our last meeting, and we are hoping to get the sort of leaflet discussed on this thread into the postnatal ward very soon.

There is some urgency to get as much positive stuff in place as possible before the PCT is disbanded ready for GP commissioning coming in. Also budgets in our area are currently being reviewed, so if we want funding for a leaflet we need to get on with it! The PCT has a brilliant administrator who organises all our MSLC meetings and holds a small budget for the MSLC but the pathway for after GP commisisoning comes in seems vague to put it kindly.

Any chance of MN getting in touch with the Care Quality Commission on this as well as the DoH? I would be very interested to see what they found on postnatal wards and what reports they have made in light of their findings.

I have also made a Freedom of Information Act request to the trust/hospital asking the awkward questions I mentioned upthread.

[KatieMumsnet]

Hello, hope all OK with everyone. Apologies again for the delay. Firstly wanted to say thanks to EFR. Yes have read your review - was especially helpful as had to go to meeting at Guardian on Monday re state of maternity services, so great to sound so well read! The Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obs and Gynae were also there, and while more focussed on longer term changes, all very receptive to the main points of this thread.

EFR and Blondieminx thanks so much for your suggestions - sound really promising, and hopefully we can help. If your MSLC say yes, then we'd be happy to host a thread asking for feedback/ top tips for those units so we can help produce a leaflet in those areas, as a start. Also think we could try for a couple more areas and see if we could get a bit of support for the leaflet.

is it clear what will happen to MSLC after PCTs are disbanded?

Maybe when we have couple of strong examples we can then think a bit bigger!

Realise there might just be me and the tumbleweed on this thread as a little time has elapsed, so I'll send you both a private message, but if anyone else is on an local Mat Services Liaison Cttee and wants to get involved, or just wants to get involved do shout.

[SuchProspects]

Katie - A bit of tumbleweed here. . I'm not involved with any MSLCs so not much help at this point. But I am interested in the campaign and I do keep checking in. I am so glad you're doing this and helping to keep the issue visible. Can you tell us what the RCM, RCO etc. are focused on?