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MNHQ

Step this way to help shape the future of maternity services in England

5 replies

RowanMumsnet · 10/07/2015 10:50

Hello

As some of you will know, Mumsnet is on the panel of the National Maternity Review, which is an NHS England initiative set up in the wake of the report into the deaths of mothers and babies at the Morecambe Bay hospitals trust.

The remit of the review is to 'assess current maternity care provision and consider how services should be developed to meet the changing needs of women and babies'.

So we'd be really grateful if you could give us your feedback on the following two very broad themes:

Which choices do you wish to be able to make about the maternity care you receive?

What are the key barriers preventing women from making the choices that they wish to?

Thanks - any and all thoughts welcome. (And just FYI, this won't be your only opportunity to feed in, and more detailed feedback systems are going to be launched soon - we'll flag these up as they happen.)

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MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 13/07/2015 11:58

Thanks so much for your input - it's very helpful in focusing our thoughts

@sootballs

MN - this is a subject I'm passionate about, because due to poor care my dd1 was left with something called hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. Her brain was irrevocably damaged during labour because of proven negligence and she is disabled with epilepsy.

and it was avoidable

Yup.

But I'm over the anger and rage and now just want to petition for better care. But the EoE NHS team have fobbed me off for over a year as patient liaison despite me travelling hundreds of miles to attend meetings.

Can I help?

Thanks Sootballs; do feel free to email us on [email protected] if there's anything particular you want us to look at or have a think about.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 27/07/2015 10:55

Morning

Thanks so much for all of this: it's been incredibly helpful. I've used the posts on this thread to give some initial feedback on MNers' views to the review. Emerging themes seem to be around:

the real nature of 'choice' - are women supported to make all kinds of choices, including eg the choice to refuse an instrumental birth and have an ELCS instead?
the paucity of data and evidence around long-term physiological impacts of birth, especially instrumental births; does more data and evidence need to be systematically collected?
similarly, would it be helpful to collect and publish a great deal more data about births of all kinds, and whether women feel listened to/trusted by their health workers, and allow it to be broken down in various ways (eg by unit/trust, first birth/subsequent births)?
the tension between targets (eg for caesarians) and choice
Bounty (!)
concern about lack of resources/money (eg unavailability of birthing centres), and about the ending of the Supervisor of Midwives position
the ongoing crisis in inpatient postnatal care, and concern about unintended consequences of allowing partners to stay on postnatal wards
concern about institutional paternalism and individual instances of unpleasantness/poor attitude among staff
poor provision for mental health care at all stages from conception to postnatal, and particularly a failure to address issues arising from birth trauma

This isn't intended to be a comprehensive summary of the thread - please rest assured that we have read and disgested all the posts - but do shout if you think we're missing something really crucial.

For now, this is hugely useful for us in shaping our responses to matters arising in the review.

There's going to be an official online 'listening exercise' (probably in the form of a survey, or several surveys) in which all members of the public will be encouraged to feed in to the review and shape its outputs - obviously we will draw your attention to this when it's launched and we do encourage all of you to get involved and flag it up to your networks as much as possible; the data gathered from these surveys will be important to the outputs of the review.

There are also going to be physical/in-person events for the public up and down England throughout August and September - again, we'll let you have the details of these when we've got them and would encourage you to go along if you can to make your voices heard.

And as ever, if there's anything you'd like to feed in to us off-board (or any documents/links you'd like us to have a look at in more detail) do please email us on [email protected]

Thanks
MNHQ

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 28/07/2015 16:00

Hello again

Here's the list of the events that will be taking place across England (copy taken from the National Maternity Review):

"The NHS Maternity Review wants to hear from you! Please come and share your views and experiences of maternity services and care."

"The NHS Maternity Review will be hosting a number of events around the country as part of its national tour to hear how women, their families and advocates, provider organisations and the professional bodies involved in maternity care feel about the current services. We also want to know what you would like the Review Panel to bear in mind as our members go about their work. These events are an opportunity to share your experiences, contribute to the work of the Review, and have your voice heard."

"The feedback from these events will contribute directly to the work of the Review and we are keen to hear from women, their families, those who work in maternity services and other professional bodies. All are welcome to come and share your views."

"The Review will be visiting the following locations on the dates below. Final details for some of these events will be circulated in due course."

"Tuesday 4th August, 10am-7pm - The Lancaster Suite, Preston Guildhall & Conference Centre, Preston
Friday 7th August, 9am-4.30pm - Morton Park Family & Community Centre, Carlisle
Thursday 13th August, 10am-8pm - Holyfields Centre, Birmingham
Tuesday 25th August, 10am-7pm - Acorn Children’s Centre, Taunton
Wednesday 26th August, 9am-7pm - venue tbc, Plymouth
Tuesday 1st September, 9am-7pm - St Nicolas Centre, Ipswich
Wednesday 2nd September, 9am-7pm - The Kings Centre, Norwich
Friday 4th September, 9am-7pm - venue tbc, St. Albans
Thursday 17th September, 10am-7pm - venue tbc, Sheffield
Friday 18th September, 10am-7pm - venue tbc, Manchester
Monday 21st September, 10am-7pm - venue tbc, East London
Wednesday 7th October, 10am-7pm - venue tbc, Newcastle"

"For more information, please contact [email protected]. We hope to see many of you there."

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 30/07/2015 10:51

Thanks IceBeing and Flowers for Scorpio - best wishes from us at MNHQ.

I brought up the issue of data collection and publication with some people recently and was directed to the stats area of the Which? Birth Choices site. Anyone fancy having a play and letting us know whether the stats on here broadly cover the areas you're concerned about?

Thanks

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 12/10/2015 16:29

Hello again

The consultation is now open - do please take a look and feed in your views.

Thanks
MNHQ

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