We want to make sure all babies born in north east London have the best possible start in life and that their parents experience the best possible pregnancy and birth. An important part of this is making sure our services are able to support this, and are able to support the needs of the growing number of people who live in our area. To do this, the NHS in north east London is working on an ongoing programme to look at maternity and neonatal care in order to understand what type of care and support pregnant women and people, and babies need. We are also reviewing how many people may need these services in the future, and what are the best ways of delivering this care.
From July to September last year, we asked you to share your views on whether you thought maternity and neonatal services needed to change and where you felt there were opportunities for improvement. Working together with local community and voluntary sector organisations we invited you to complete a survey or attend our in-person or virtual focus groups to give you the chance to have your voice heard. We received feedback from 499 people of which 94% agreed that services needed to change in order to continue meeting the needs of pregnant women, people and babies in north east London.
Watch this video to hear from our champion for maternity and neonatal services, Diane Jones, the ICB Chief Nursing Officer and a practising midwife, on what she had to say about working with residents and the wider community around shaping this work.
We are now making sure that the feedback we received underpins future maternity and neonatal services in north east London. The key themes from the feedback and what we are doing to bring this to life is detailed below.
You told us you would like to see reassurance that there are sufficient staffing levels in place to safely look after pregnant women and people, their families and newborn babies.
We will develop options that look at the different ways of delivering maternity and neonatal care in north east London and the impact of this on staffing levels. These will include an option where pregnant women and people in north east London can choose to give birth at a birthing centre attached to a hospital, but where care is led by midwives or at home, where this is appropriate and where that is the preferred option.
You said you’d like to see timely, individualised mental health support throughout the pregnancy journey.
We are looking at how to make sure that mental health needs are discussed throughout pregnancy journey and that support is available and offered to people not just at routine antenatal appointments during pregnancy, but already before that, when people are first thinking about having a baby, and postnatally after the birth.
You called for community based support that is available closer to home, outside hospital settings.
We are building in community-based support including women and families being able to receive their follow up care closer to home or at even home, where midwives check in regularly to ensure you and your baby are doing well and receiving the care you need. We are also working together with community and voluntary sector organisations and charities to deliver support services that are closer to home for pregnant women and people, their families and babies.
You told us that kindness, compassion and cultural awareness should be at the heart of maternity and neonatal services. You said that the focus should be on reducing inequalities, including recognising and addressing incidents of racism and discrimination.
We are commissioning cultural awareness leadership training for all maternity and neonatal health and care staff working in north east London. Thiswill mean that our staff have even better understanding and awareness of cultural differences. We are also building in ways to identify pregnant women and people, families and babies who are at greater risk of experiencing complications or poorer experience or outcomes as early on as possible, so that we can take action to mitigate and prevent that.
You told us that you wanted clear and accessible communication, including translation, interpretation and advocacy when needed as this is key to ensuring maternity and neonatal services can continue to meet the needs of our diverse populations. [MH1]
We know that we want to be able to assess people’s communication and advocacy support needs as early on as possible when they book in for antenatal services so that we can best support individual needs and are looking at how to make this central to our services.
You highlighted the importance of choice and personalised care in delivering maternity and neonatal services.
Pregnant women and people will continue to be able to actively shape their care and their birth plans, including identifying a preferred location for their birth. Our clinical teams will work with you to make sure that we work together to achieve the best outcomes.
Finally, you told us that we need to be working with our residents and communities to create solutions that meet people’s needs.
We are committed to ensuring that how we deliver care in the future reflects the feedback we have received from people and communities. We will continue to involve local pregnant women and people, their families, staff, and stakeholders to help us to shape this work going forward.
What happens next
No decisions about future services have been made yet, but your feedback has helped develop our thinking around new models of maternity and neonatal care for people living in north east London. Between now and September 2025 the feedback will be used to develop a selection of options for what this could look like in practice. To find out about future involvement opportunities around shaping maternity and neonatal services in north east London please sign up to our People’s Panel.
