Help shape services for tots
PARENTS URGED TO SHARE EXPERIENCES SO THAT NHS CAN CARRY OUT CHANGES
NEW and expectant parents who have either used or will be using Derby and Burton’s hospitals are being urged to help improve maternity services.
Derbyshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices (DMNV) needs mothers and fathers to share their experiences, knowledge and skills so hospitals can develop services which suit the needs of parents and children.
DMNV is a collaboration between NHS Derbyshire and Derby Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), University Hospitals Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital, Burton, and Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
The CCG is responsible for commissioning maternity and neonatal services, while the two hospitals trusts run the services directly.
Members of the public can join DMNV’S Facebook group, and also have the opportunity to join its committee and so work directly on improving services.
Patti Paine, UHDB’S DBS director of midwifery, said she he was keen to hear from new parents, because they ey had such immedi- ate experience of the services.
She said: “Maternity services are absolutely vital to our community, and improving those e services demands nds that we hear from m parents who have experienced perienced them first-hand. We need to understand better what parents have gone through, good and bad, so we can share that knowledge and us to improve.”
“At UHDB we are always trying to improve and develop our maternity and neonatal services, and the input from parents is absolutely pri priceless in that process. We need to hear from new mum mums and dads ab about how we ca can do better – and what we do well – and the MVP i initiative is a r really effectiv tive way of ens ensuring that exper experience has a real impact.” imp Chesterfie Chesterfield Royal Hospital’s Deputy Head of Nursing and Midwifery, Julie Mycock, said: “We make every effort to make each birthing experience as positive for the mother and her family as possible and all of our midwives, doctors and supporting teams do their very best to make this happen.
“Receiving feedback from mums who have used our service is vital to understand what those needs are which is why we’re encouraging ladies who have given birth here in the last three years to talk about their experiences and get involved in this programme.
“It’s an opportunity for us to better understand the wants and needs of those who use our maternity services and give us the opportunity to explain how our midwives and the teams that support them work and how those needs can best be accommodated.”
Alex Albus, programme lead for maternity at NHS Derby and Derbyshire CCG, said the DMNV will help all those working in maternity and neonatal care, as well as other services, such as health visitors and mental health practitioners, to understand the experiences of Derbyshire families.
She said: “We will be helping women to feed back to the maternity service where they had their baby, and providing a mechanism for NHS services to learn from each other, develop best practice and help reduce inequalities in our area.
To find out more about MVP, parents can attend virtual meetings. They should register their interest:
January 19: https://www. surveymonkey. com/ r/ DMNVevent19january21
January 26: https://www. surveymonkey. com/ r/ DMNVevent26jan2021
For more information, email ddccg. derbyshirematernitytransformation@nhs.net
It’s an opportunity for us to understand the wants and needs of those who use our services
Julie Mycock