New mums urged to share ideas on improving maternity services

By Roger Ogle - 21 June 2017

Community

New parents are being invited to a one-off workshop to help improve maternity services in Swindon and the surrounding area.

If you have become a parent in the past year, the Maternity Experience Whose Shoes? workshop will give you the chance to share your experiences with maternity staff and other healthcare professionals, as well as other new parents.

Maternity Experience, or #MatExp, is a social campaign to identify and share best practice across the nation’s maternity services. Its Whose Shoes? approach helps to put healthcare staff into the shoes of patients, and the families they support, to help improve their maternity experience.

The workshop will also help in working towards the Better Births vision, which focuses on maternity services across England becoming safer, more personalised and more family friendly, as part of the National Maternity Transformation Programme over the next five years.

Sandy Richards, Interim Head of Midwifery at Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming new mums and their partners to talk about their experiences of maternity care in Swindon and help us with identifying what is important in helping us achieve the Better Births vision.

“We would love to hear your ideas for how we can improve our services, what you like and where we could do better. The workshop is free, fun and informal, so please come along - and bring your little ones too!”

Carolyn Bell, Quality Lead at Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) which commissions maternity services in the area, said: “The CCG is delighted that this event is being held in Swindon.

“It’s really important that we listen and learn from women who have recently used maternity services both at the hospital and in the community and use these experiences to help us improve services for women and their families.”

The Whose Shoes? workshop is being held from 9.30am-1pm on Wednesday 28 June at The Meadow, Leigh Road, Penhill, Swindon SN2 5DE. Lunch will be provided.

To book your place, or for further information, please contact Katie Horgan, Delivery Suite Ward Administrator at Great Western Hospital, at[email protected]. You can also book your place on the Eventbrite website. Please book early as places are limited.

More information about Maternity Experience is available at www.matexp.org.uk.

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