National Maternity Voices (NMV) is pleased to announce that we are part of the Maternity Consortium led by Tommy’s and Sands, alongside the Pregnancy and Baby Charities Network (PBCN) and community organisations: Five X More CIC, Muslim Women’s Network UK and LGBT Mummies Tribe. The Consortium is one of the 18 Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) groups that have been selected to be part of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance (HWA)
The VCSE HWA is a partnership between third sector organisations and the national health and care system. It has been created to share their expertise at national level, with the aim of addressing health disparities and improving health services for all.
As the organisation of independent lay Maternity Voices Partnership (MVP) chairs, we are delighted to be part of the Tommy’s and Sands Maternity Consortium, alongside other VCSEs.
The Consortium plans to work towards reducing maternity and neonatal health inequalities. This will be achieved through the involvement of women, expectant parents and families in the development of England’s health and social care policy.
Aiming to seek a diverse range of views from all who use maternity and neonatal services, the consortium will also hear from varied organisations. These include the Pregnancy and Baby Charities Network and other relevant VCSE organisations, local MVPs via NMV, and related community organisations.
This collective expertise will join national and local voices behind a common agenda – to reduce health inequalities. This will include the whole pregnancy journey from pre-conception and through the first year of a baby’s life.
NMV is uniquely well positioned to source service user input on any maternity and neonatal services topics. We do this through our network of MVP chairs and members, and connections with relevant organisations.
We are excited about the potential of the Consortium to enable us to develop our service user voice (SUV) work. It will also help us to facilitate the involvement of diverse voices in co-creating national maternity improvements in a variety of ways. By embedding a variety of service user voices in policy and programme developments, the Consortium will make significant contributions to the reduction of health disparities across England.
Our SUV opportunities mailing list will be launched shortly, for both individuals and relevant organisations.