Michelle Summers and Matthew Gray 12 October 2017 Working together to achieve ‘Better Births’: A communications and engagement plan for BLMK Local Maternity System Michelle Summers and Matthew Gray 12 October 2017

What’s happening? A Maternity Five Year Forward View has been published to create a modern maternity service in England. The plan is to improve maternity care so that by 2020/21, all services: Provide choice and allow for personalisation of services; Have reduced rates of stillbirth, neonatal death, maternal death and brain injury during birth by 20% and are on track to make a 50% reduction by 2025; Are investigating and learning from incidents, and sharing this with Local Maternity Systems and with others; Are fully engaged in the development and implementation of the NHS Improvement Maternity and Neonatal Quality Improvement programme.

What are we doing? As part of the Five Year Forward View on Maternity Services, the Better Births programme is being rolled out across the country. The programme will give NHS organisations the opportunity to work with women, birth workers, carers and families to rethink, reshape and restructure maternity services. As one of the first Accountable Care Systems, Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes have selected to join forces, to deliver a plan to improve maternity services across the STP footprint to create a service that meets expectations of patients and public.

What do we want to achieve? We want to develop a culture of co-production, so that women’s voices are used to inform the service and feel in control of their care. We want to achieve a ‘shared language’ with our stakeholders. We want to develop a local offer with input from women, Trusts and Healthcare professionals. Our aim is to change our approach to maternity services so that the service includes: Greater teamwork Better dialogue Openness and inclusivity Supports greater integration of services Engaging, involving and empowering women, birth workers, and carers in reshaping maternity services is essential to its success. We want our work to be women-centred. We want to work with the wider STP to ensure we connect to other STP programmes and priorities.

Who will we engage? Experts by experience - Women / service users Birth workers Carers Providers e.g. community services / Trusts Clinicians / Midwives Patients and public Statutory organisations GPs Elected Members Local Authorities Media

Stakeholder map INFLUENCE LOW HIGH Keep satisfied GPs Community services Social Services PALS Local Authorities Elected Members Involve Maternity Voice Partnerships Service users Birth workers, families, carers Healthwatch Disability / Faith groups Keep informed Patients (general) All staff (general) Media Engage Overview and Scrutiny Health and Wellbeing Boards Project steering group Board of Directors Trust Clinical Directors Midwives INFLUENCE LOW HIGH

Messages #YourBabyYourWay We want to deliver the same high standard of maternity services in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes. As part of this, we want to engage, involve and empower women in our area to help us to rethink and reshape maternity services. We want women to have a good experience of maternity services in our area. Our end goal is to make sure we offer a personalised care in the right place. We want to make sure we have healthy babies and healthy mums in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes.

Strategic approach Maternity Voice Partnerships and Local Maternity Services will be invited to join a steering group, which will be used to co-produce maternity services. Partnerships with maternity groups, children’s centres, NCT etc. will be explored to encourage involvement from women. Faith and disability groups will be engaged with to encourage participation from seldom heard groups. In addition to involving women and service user groups in co-production, an engagement campaign will be run in parallel to ensure the programme reaches all communities and key stakeholders.

Co-production Steering Group Our approach LMS Operational Board Work Streams Co-production Steering Group Maternity Voice Partnership MK Maternity Voice Partnership Bedford Maternity Voice Partnership Luton Interest groups: Pregnant women, postnatal women, mental health groups, faith groups, LGBT groups, disability groups, Healthwatch, GPs, carers, carer networks, clinicians, elected members.

Key co-production milestones High level project milestones Target date Questionnaire designed for engagement November Identify Children’s Centres for events December Engagement at Children’s Centres underway January Recruitment for MVP Bedford and Luton December & January Co-production training with Consultation Institute February Bespoke Facilitation of co-production group – with Consultation Institute March First meeting of the Co-production Steering Group