Gloucestershire MVP have had a busy few months since I last wrote an update, so I thought the New Year would be a good opportunity to take stock of what we’ve been up to and let you know a bit about our plans for 2020.
Lots of you have been sharing our Facebook page and interacting with us and it’s been great to hear how many of you are keen to help make a difference to our local maternity services, even if you are not personally planning on having any more children. If you would like to get involved with our committee, you can express an interest very quickly here and I will be in touch.
Looking back
In October, we held a coffee morning at Roots Community Café. We had some really interesting feedback on your experiences, in particular, relating to partners staying overnight on the Maternity Ward at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and how your care was personalised to you. We are planning similar events all around the county over the coming months so please do look out for our events on Facebook and come along if you can. Babies, toddlers and children are always welcome at these events and we normally have quite a few children between us just from the project team (many of whom are pictured below)!
In November, we were pleased to be able to support making the Journey to Parenthood Journal available to pregnant women and their families through the Glos MVP website. You can use it to detail what matters to you through your pregnancy, labour and beyond, and can be used to support conversations with your maternity team. The team who developed the journal are keen to get your feedback, so if you’ve given it a try please do fill in the survey and tell them how you found it!
In December, we visited the Maternity Ward at GRH and were very lucky to meet some proud new parents and gorgeous babies, including lots of twins! We collected anonymous feedback which has been passed to the senior team on the ward and the Local Maternity System and we will be carrying out similar visits to the other locations very soon so please look out for us if you are due soon!
Looking ahead
We have lots of really exciting plans for 2020, and you can see what they are on this page.
I’m delighted that one of our key priorities this year will be around infant feeding. We asked for your experiences of feeding your baby on Facebook and we’ve had so much honest feedback from lots of you which we really want to take forward. We’re hosting an infant feeding event on 27 March, which I really hope lots of you will be able to come along to. The full details will be advertised soon, but we will have various professionals, peer supporters and MVP committee members there to chat about all things feeding. You can come and ask questions and get some advice on things such as bottle sterilisation, breastfeeding, and feeding if and when you return to work.
We understand that it isn’t always possible for you to join us at events, so we also want to provide opportunities for you to get involved through our Facebook page. We are hosting our first ‘Ask the Expert’ Facebook Live event on Thursday 6 February at 12.30pm, where one of our community midwives will be discussing all things water birth. If you have any questions you’d like us to address, please post them in the event on Facebook here or email glccg.glosmvp@nhs.net.
We will also be working hard to improve the Glos MVP website in the months ahead, so please do let us know what you think we could do better (and what we’re doing well too!) so that we can ensure the information we have available is as useful for you and your family as possible.
Don’t forget that you can get in touch with us at any time if you have anything you want to chat about or feedback you want to share, on our Facebook page, email (glccg.glosmvp@nhs.net), or in person at one of our events.
Emma x