Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership groups praise UHDB maternity services during recent visits
UHDB was pleased to welcome representatives from two local maternity advisory groups to our Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital Burton earlier this month.
The Derbyshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Maternity Voices Partnership (MNVPs) visited each of our sites and were guided around the facilities on wards, in delivery suits and clinic areas by colleagues from our maternity teams to mirror the journey pregnant people would experience when coming to our hospitals to give birth, as part of their 15 Steps initiative.
Following tours of the departments, members of UHDB’s senior maternity team joined the groups for feedback sessions to hear first-hand what they felt was positive, as well as areas that could be adapted to further enhance the patient experience.
Lorraine Purcell, Head of Midwifery at UHDB, attended events at both sites, and said: “We were delighted to hear such positive feedback from our local MNVPs following their visits and would like to thank them once again for their views on how we can continue to adapt our services in order to ensure we’re offering the best care and experience for people accessing our maternity services.”
MNVPs are independent groups formed of professionals, patients and those who have an interest in maternity services and work with NHS organisations across the two counties to provide feedback on and help shape the future of maternity services for expectant families.
In a joint statement, Derbyshire and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent MNVPs said: “We would like to say a huge thank you to UHDB and all the incredible and wonderful staff there, for making these 15 Steps events possible.
“It was really important and incredible to be able to visit the maternity units at both locations and meet face to face with the senior midwifery team afterwards to discuss the celebration points and the observations that were made, after the last two challenging years.
“The visits were a wonderful, practical example of how we are all working together to put local families at the centre of improvements to local maternity and neonatal services, and how MNVP’s and Trusts can work together to achieve this.”
Our Derbyshire group was joined by representatives from Community Action Derby’s Health Inequalities Partnership, Breastfeeding Network Derbyshire, Connected-Perinatal Peer Support, and Birth Companions who support pregnant people at HMP Foston Hall.
* Please note: some images were taken before the reintroduction of mandatory mask wearing guidance across our hospitals *