Accountable to: MVP Lead and NVP Lead

Liaises with:  Nottingham & Nottinghamshire Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnership Board, SFH Maternity & Neonatal Leadership board (including Professional Midwifery Advocates and Team Leaders) as well as Charity partners, community group leaders, and other stakeholders involved in maternity & neonatal care locally.

Time commitment: 3 days a week with flexible hours as some weekend or evening work will be required

Reimbursement: This is an expert service user role reimbursed at £150/day with unpaid leave, sickness or absence

Length of contract: Fixed term until 31^st March 2026

The roles are remunerated at £150 per day

Overview

Hearing the voices of women and families is a requirement of NHS England’s Three Year Delivery Plan for Maternity & Neonatal Services (March 2023). The plan clearly sets out key responsibilities for Maternity & Neonatal Providers and Integrated Care Boards (ICB) as follows:

1.21    It is the responsibility of providers to:

• Involve service users in quality, governance, and co-production when designing and planning delivery of maternity and neonatal services.

1.22    It is the responsibility of ICBs to:

• Commission and fund MNVPs, to cover each trust within their footprint, reflecting the diversity of the local population in line with the ambition above.
• Remunerate and support MNVP leads, and ensure that an annual, fully funded workplan is agreed and signed off by the MNVP and the ICB. All MNVP members should have reasonable expenses reimbursed.

We are hoping to appoint an Engagement Lead to support us in delivering these responsibilities, It is hoped that this role will ensure that the MNVP reaches a wide and representative audience and through engagement and networking will provide an opportunity for all voices in the community to be heard.

The Engagement Lead will build a network of connections including under-represented groups to ensure we include the voices of all individuals and communities who use the services of SFH for maternity or neonatal care. They will be responsible for collating feedback from surveys, face to face sessions, and user engagement to support learning and service improvement.

MNVP Summary

A Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) is an independent team made up of women, birthing people and their families; Providers (who deliver services such as midwives and doctors); the Integrated Care Board (ICB); who commission health services, the Local Authority (LA), who commission public health and social care, and Voluntary Organisations.

The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire MNVP includes the areas of Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County, incorporating two Hospital Providers: Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust and Sherwood Forest Hospitals (SFH) NHS Foundation Trust.

The MNVP works in collaboration with system partners within the local Maternity & Neonatal System (LMNS) to support service improvements.

Our MNVP also includes a great team of passionate MNVP volunteers who represent and reach out to local women, birthing persons and their families to gather feedback on their experiences. Some volunteers also collaborate with the Providers to support service improvements based on the voice of our service users.

Our MNVP Mission Statement is:

Championing the voices of service users to improve maternity and neonatal experiences

Organisational Summary

The NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) was formed on 1 July 2022. The ICB is responsible for the strategic commissioning and delivery of NHS healthcare services for a population of 1.2 million people and covers Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

This advertised role will sit within the Local Maternity & Neonatal System Programme Management Office (LMNS PMO), a team within the ICB who has oversight and supports transformation of local maternity and neonatal care and who also host the MNVP.

Our vision is for maternity services across Nottingham & Nottinghamshire to become safer, more personalised, kinder, professional and more family friendly; where every woman or birthing person has access to information to make decisions about their care; and where they and the baby can access support that is centred around their individual needs and circumstances.

Responsibilities of the MNVP Hospital & Community Engagement Lead

Engagement:

• Plan and facilitate specific engagement activities in the hospital and in the community
• Gather face to face feedback
• Engage with women, birthing people, their partners and families to encourage them to feedback about their experience of the maternity and neonatal services
• Engage with individuals, groups and communities, particularly those whose voice may be less heard
• Use a range of engagement and consultation methods to gather information and listen to feedback from communities

Partnership working

• Identify key partners and stakeholders to engage with
• Map the community organisations that are already working with service users
• Network and build rapport with community organisations to facilitate accessing established community groups
• Partnership working with staff across the ICB footprint
• To liaise with the MNVP Leads and Trust Leaders to support improvement planning
• To deputise for the MNVP leads in meetings as required

Data collection & reporting

• To devise surveys and feedback forums to gain the experiences of service users
• Data collection and storage of data into existing data forms
• Collate, analyse, theme and report on service user feedback to the MNVP Leads
• Report on effectiveness of engagement including statistics of who we are connecting with
• Present reports and share learning at different forums as required
• Attend meetings and present themes of data to the MNVP leads and partners
• Updating service users about service provision and changes at SFH
• Report to Line Manager on workload, progress and results

Service provision/Signposting?

• Understand the services on offer at SFH for maternity & neonatal care so that conversations with service users reflect current practise
• Provide advice, support and feedback on matters relating to service user experience
• To signpost people to support services in situations where they meet service users who may need further professional help or support

Person qualities

• Have lived experience of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’s Maternity and/or Neonatal services
• Enthusiasm for improving maternity and neonatal care for women, birthing people and their families
• Excellent communication and written skills and can adapt style and tone for specific audiences
• Experienced in working with volunteers, service users or people with lived experience
• Experience of devising feedback mechanisms and surveys
• Ability and experience of listening well to the voices of people who use maternity and neonatal services, including those whose voice may be less heard
• The ability to liaise with service users and hospital staff
• Non-judgemental and compassionate
• Good empathy and ability to identify with other people’s feelings
• Anti-racist and committed to supporting inclusive and accessible services
• Dealing with confidential information sensitively and appropriately
• Open and honest communication to support service users to know their feedback will be received with a focus on promoting learning and safer clinical systems.
• Able to deal with delicate and confidential issues – utilising sensitivity and own judgement in a professional manner.
• Monitor own wellbeing and understand methods of self-care available
• Be familiar with policies and guidelines influencing maternity & neonatal services including Ockenden, MBRACE, CQC, NHSE 3yr delivery plan
• Passionate about volunteer work and hearing the voices of service users.

General

• Driving License and access to a vehicle
• Willingness to travel to access hospitals and community venues as needed
• IT literate with access to Wifi
• Flexible working pattern
• Able to manage own time, workload and resources
• Participate in team meetings and training as and when required
• Adhere to the policies and procedures of SFH for onsite working
• To access supervision/counselling support as required

Contact for more information and to request an expression of interest form is: 

nnicb-nn.mnvp@nhs.net