Farewell, and Thank you

So after nearly two years chairing the MSLC, I have stood down from the role and on the 18 October Jessica was elected as the new chair. So this post is really a little refresher over what we have achieved in the last two years and opportunity to thank all of those involved in the MSLC and in making huge improvements to maternity services in Lewisham during that time.

So what do I think the major achievements have been during my time steering our Committee?

1. The opening and huge success of the Midwife led birth centre
2. The introduction of robust process for monthly Walking the Patch visits
3. Midwife attendance and promotion of ante natal careat two Lewisham People's Day 2010 and 2011
4. A programme of outreach sessions with seldom heard groups to help build up the picture of what matters to users of maternity services. Sessions have included, young parents, refugee women, and dads as a few examples and a plan for more
5. Supporting the Trust to achieve the first stage of unicef baby friendly status
6. Promoting breastfeeding welcome in Lewisham
7. Informing and supporting Lewisham Healthcare Trust with their refurbishment and improvements to Labour Ward and Post natal ward to be completed in 2013

Our priorities for this year on top of our core business have focused on working with the Trust on:

• Normalising birth
• Supporting women with mental health needs
• Infant feeding

Hope you like the boobies cake to celebrate the launch of baby cafe local in Lewisham.
We certainly enjoyed them... yummy!

I have had the great privilege of working with truly dedicated maternity professionals and a just as dedicated group of service user representatives committed to improving the information and services available along with ensuring engagement of women in informing how services are shaped in the future.

So thank you team...

So what are my hopes for the future, I am wishing Jessica the best of luck in her knew role but know she doesn't really need it.... I am hoping that with the changes in commissioning of health services the MSLC has a key role to play in supporting the commissioners to target resources with the needs of Lewisham families, that the MSLC continues the outreach work and possibly looks to hold some themed events on 'home birth' or 'post natal' care for example as larger parent forum events in partnership with the Trust. That the MSLC revisits some of its key themes like; normalising birth and mental health in 2013 to check in on progress with Lewisham Healthcare Trust.

Thank you for reading!

Themes for 2012

I promised an update on the themes for the mslc meetings throughout 2012. These have been informed by the highest scoring priorities for the committee to focus on when we had our training in 2012:

1) normalising childbirth (February)
2) improving care to women with mental health issues (June)
3) breast feeding and UNICEF baby friendly status (October)

Along with these meetings the committee will meet in April, August, and December.

If you have a specific interest in these topics and want to attend do contact me if you are not already a member of the mslc.

We are looking to increase the participation of service users on the committee so if you want to be part of making a positive difference to families having babies in Lewisham do get in touch.

A reminder of other things happening this year;

Our continued programme of focus groups with - dads, lesbian and gay parents, women with mental health issues

Ongoing walking the patch visits on mat 5

Mslc service user involvement in the refurbishment plans for labour ward and mat 5.

Would be lovely to hear from you

Penny



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What's going on? A review of 2011

Well it's been very busy in my part of the world and the mslc has met three times since my last post. We have also spent a day together training which turned out to be really productive and illuminating. We found out that we have more in common than just a keen interest in birth, babies and feeding! Like, crafts, gardening and growing our own food, foraging for food, keeping chickens and baking.

I think as its been so long since posting I am just going to give a snap shot of where I think we are with maternity services in Lewisham.

Structures: The public health team that support the committee have now transferred to the local authority and are based in the town hall in catford. Hopefully this will make liaising and involving the council a smoother process in the future.

gp's have set up their commissioning arrangements ready for the transfer of purchasing powers and the public health team and hospital are building relationships for how services will be purchased in the future.

It will be interesting to see how that evolves in the next few months.

University Hospital Lewisham: There have been a number of senior staff changes in maternity services and these are all leading to imporvements for both labour ward, and postnatal.... The labour ward will be getting a minor refurbishment this year in particular the two room that are dedicated for 'normal' deliveries. The postnatal ward has had a deep clean and a full review is underway along with plan to refurb the space including the creation of a dedicated feeding/expressing room with all teh resources required to support breastfeeding and proper advice for formula/bottle feeding.

With the birth centre now firmly established there has been a decision to appoint a joint birth centre and labour ward manager (Lynn Bayes)and implement a staff rotation procedure for the birth centre and labour ward. The Committee think this is a great step forward in enabling midwives to promote active, normal birth and active support during labour in both settings. Would love to know what you think?


Engagement: our dedicated volunteers continue to do regular walking the patch visits to the post natal ward and get views of new mums and some dads of their experiences that are used to inform the MSLC and the hospital. I am hoping more of the service user reps are able to do walking the patch visits this year.

The hospital are trialling an electronic tablet questionnaire on the post natal ward their have been some technical issues which are being resolved but these will help with our feedback.

The MSLC has committed to engage with users of maternity services more broadly, given not everyone is able to or wants to engage in the committee on an ongoing basis. I try to do this via the blog and facebook group, and we have conducted 2 very successful focus groups in 2011 with young mums and refugee and asylum seeker mums, which has proved really useful in gathering a broader range of views that informs how we seek to plan and deliver services in the future. In 2012 we plan to meet with dads and lesbian and gay parents in Lewsisham... If you are inetersted in being involved in either session. Do get in touch.

Breastfeeding: Lewisham hospital has been awarded unicef breast feeding friendly status at stage 1 and now has a set period of time to achieve the next step. This is a great step forward for all invloved and big thanks go to Smita Hanciles and Jill Moore and all those involved in the breastfeeding working group of the committee. Smita held a successful event early in Decemeber to help develop the the infant feeding pathway for mums and babies and to discuss plans for breast feeding friendly places across Lewisham and surrounding area. More news to come on this.

The next meeting is the 29 Febuary 2012 and I will do an update on our priorities for 2012 shortly. Please comment and add to the post if you are involved in any of the work mentioned here. Or have recently experienced maternity services in Lewisham... How was it for you?








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone