Hi everyone, I’m Laura and I wanted to take the opportunity to write about what matters to you day (6 June), to share why personalised care matters and how it has impacted me.
Hi everyone - I’m Amy Libell, mum of three under five, and service user chair of the North Kirklees Maternity Voices Partnership.
The North Kirklees Maternity Voices Partnership (MVP) is a multi-disciplinary group made up of both professionals and service users ensuring that women and birthing people’s voices are heard when it comes to the delivery of local maternity services. The MVP meets as a whole around 5 or 6 times a year, though smaller groups work on various projects throughout the year.
I became the chair of my local MVP by accident really. When the role was advertised, I didn’t really know about the MVP, despite having two children at that point and being a hypnobirthing teacher. When a third person sent me the role description and suggested I apply, I thought I had better take a look - I realised I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by, and here I am almost two years later feeling very lucky to be able to call this role my own.
I’ve had three very different pregnancies and births. I often joke that I’m one induction away from a full house at ‘birth bingo’, having experienced caesarean birth, assisted birth, and a completely hands off water birth in my living room by the Christmas tree. I’ve experienced traumatic birth and I’ve experienced incredible birth; births pre, during and post Covid lockdowns; birth where I have been well supported and not so well supported. I’ve had hyperemesis gravidarum during pregnancy, my eldest was in the neonatal unit for the first fortnight of her life, not to mention the scare where she was blue lighted between hospitals in the back of an ambulance; I’ve received wonderful breastfeeding support. Having had such a wide range of experiences myself I am ridiculously passionate about the experience a person has throughout pregnancy, birth and postnatally, and I want to do whatever I can to ensure that every other pregnant person has that ‘incredible birth’ rather than the ‘traumatic birth’.
There are four main ways that I do this as MVP chair, working closely with staff at Mid Yorkshire Hospital Trust:
Gather feedback from women and birthing people across North Kirklees
I listen to the stories of local services in a range of ways, including conversations in antenatal clinics or on the postnatal ward, through local service user voice representatives, online engagement and hosting listening events in the community.
All feedback is shared directly with the trust, and then action plans are developed to ensure that feedback is acted upon. Wherever possible, when a change is made as a result of feedback, I then share that back with women and birthing people so service users recognise the importance of their feedback and know that it is being genuinely listened to. One upcoming area of work I’m really excited about is around building relationships with obstetricians at the trust and exploring the language around risk with them. It’s something we hear about a lot from service users.
Review local maternity services
Using a national framework called ‘Fifteen Steps’ MVP members visit areas of the hospital and recognise positive attributes as well as make recommendations for improvements. We’ve had fantastic engagement from staff following our ‘Fifteen Steps’ reports and have seen lots of changes implemented as a result, for example more welcoming signage, relaxing images on labour ward, ‘welcome to the ward’ information sheets and a comfortable seating area for women and birthing people to use whilst waiting to be picked up following discharge.
Engage in co-production with maternity services
When a theme in the feedback is recognised I work with MVP members to address this theme. For example, we heard a lot of service users telling us that they weren’t given enough information in advance of having an induction. At the moment we are working closely with the induction of labour manager and her team of midwives to produce a video which aims to ensure that all women and birthing people have access to information about induction of labour before they decide whether or not that is the right thing for them or not.
Represent service users at key meetings
Finally, I ensure the voices of service users are heard at a wide range of meetings, for example at monthly quality surveillance meetings and governance meetings. I also attend interviews to represent service users, LMNS meetings and regional meetings where appropriate.
I count myself very lucky to be the MVP chair, being involved in all of this work, and even more lucky to be MVP chair within the LMNS who have always been incredibly supportive of MVP chairs and the work we do. I am fortunate to work alongside other fantastic MVP chairs within the LMNS, sharing ideas and cheering each other on.
I wanted to say a huge thank you to those who support the MVPs and to you for reading this blog - if you’d like to find out more or get involved, please do get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me by email mvpnorthkirklees@gmail.com
Thank you for reading,
Amy
Our Partnership is proud to be supporting national Volunteers Week which started on Thursday 1 June.
Every person giving their time, skills and commitment to help others is a vital part of the work at WY HCP and all are valued. You don’t need to look far to see the positive difference being made at every level of society when the VCS comes together to lead on initiatives such as volunteers acting as befrienders, running food banks, community cafes or gardens, delivering accessible group activities or events, acting as trustees for charities, to name a few.
Applications for the third cohort of the HSJ award winning Fellowship Programme will close on 16 June. This leadership development programme is aimed specifically at colleagues from ethnically diverse communities who are working within the health and care system in West Yorkshire and is aimed at first time leaders.