1. 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

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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