Meeting with the Secretary of State-The National Maternity and Neonatal Collective

💜 THE NATIONAL MATERNITY & NEONATAL COLLECTIVE 💜

Three weeks into my new role as CEO at @birthbetter it was announced that the Government would be instructing Baroness Amos to lead an Investigation into maternity services to address the harm, care and inequalities families faced in the system.

For me, my question was ‘how many more reviews, recommendations, and trauma stories did we need?’

How many more women & birthing people, families and also staff needed to die or be harmed for change to happen?

That was the ‘So what?’ moment.

What next?

So at Make Birth Better  we made a decision.

Change hadn’t happened thus far over the years, so what would?

Us.

We would be the change.

We would create action, not just words, but not just us. With others.

So we spoke to every charity, organisation, professional and families possible and brought together a Collective-

The Maternity and Neonatal Collective.

We spent the past year, countless meetings and hours co-producing a strategic Plan with not only problems, but recommendations and solutions to address what was required to improve care, backed up with research and evidence.

But not just that. We looked at who was most harmed, black and brown women and birthing people, and other marginalised communities and centered them.

We met with Wes Streeting , the Baroness and Investigation team at the DHSC in March, and then yesterday held a full Collective meeting with the new Secretary of State James Murray MP Baroness Gillian Merron michelle welsh our new National Maternity Advisor and Donald Pebbles of NHS England to discuss topics within the Plan and how we could work with them to implement them.

It was an emotive day, and every single person spoke and shared with passion, care and respect.

This is what true Co-production looks like.

Hundreds of people coming together to create a Plan that provides solutions- for real systemic change.

This is just the beginning.

Now the hard work starts.

And the Collective, who Make Birth Better  and others are also part of the Taskforce, will work with the SOS and team to ensure our Plan is put into action.

Change is coming- and the Collective will be driving it.