15 Steps to better maternity care
Kernow MVP carried out their 15 Steps for Maternity Challenge at Royal Cornwall Hospital in October 2022. The team from KMVP and a group of recent service users visited a variety of areas where maternity and neonatal care is provided. 15 steps for maternity is a toolkit developed by NHS England, used to help service user experience inform quality improvement.
This is the second 15 steps visit KMVP have made to RCHT with the first being carried out in early 2020. Today KMVP publish this second 15 steps for maternity report which contains a series of recommendations put forward by the team of service users. The report also highlights some of the wonderful work that has happened to continually improve care and experiences for families who are pregnant and give birth in Cornwall.
The highlights include the focus on safe and personalised care throughout the delivery suite and Truro birth centre as well as the calm and welcoming environment within the Neonatal unit.
The report published today also contains a series of recommendations informed by the experience of the service users during the visit.
The main themes included in the recommendations include continuing the calm and welcoming environment found in the birth centre and delivery suite onto the wards, consistency and accessibility of information, sharing areas of good practice and learning to other areas.
The report also looks at progress of actions from the first 15 steps report and highlights areas for further work.
The report has been presented to senior leaders of maternity and neonatal services and the next steps are to coproduce an action plan with KMVP to make progress on the suggested actions.
Who are we
Kernow MVP is the formal service user voice partner of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LMNS. The organisation works with key senior stakeholders across the system to translate and champion coproduction, critical friendship, and meaningful involvement.
We listen to and engage with those who have recently used the local maternity and neonatal services and feed this back to those that commission and provide them.
We advocate for the inclusion of service user voice and lived experience at all levels of designing, planning and delivering services.
Thank you to everyone that supported this project and worked hard to make it possible: NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly CIOS Local Maternity and Neonatal System Royal Cornwall Hospital maternity leadership team Kernow maternity voices partnership volunteers Healthwatch Cornwall All the families, service users and representatives from around Cornwall.
