A Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) listens to the experiences of women and families, and brings together service users, staff and other stakeholders to plan, review and improve maternity and neonatal care.

MNVPs ensure that service users’ voices are at the heart of decision-making in maternity and neonatal services by being embedded within the leadership of provider trusts and feeding into the LMNS (which in turn feeds into ICB decision-making).

This influences improvements in the safety, quality, and experience of maternity and neonatal care.

It is essential that the voices of women, birthing people and their families are included in the development and improvement of maternity and neonatal care in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (especially during a time of great challenge within the services).

Why do we have a Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership?

The NHS England three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal, sets out how the NHS will make maternity and neonatal care safer, more personalised, and more equitable for women, babies, and families.

There are four key areas that maternity services should focus on:

• Listening to and working with women and families, with compassion
• Growing, retaining, and supporting our workforce
• Developing and sustaining a culture of safety, learning, and support
• Standards and structures that underpin safer, more personalised, and more equitable care.

The Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) was set up to help organisations meet those aims by:  

• Listening to and reflecting on the views of women, birthing people and families, including bereaved families.
• Having strategic influence to embed views into decision-making.

The MNVP also enables improvements detailed within the Ockenden Review, Saving Babies Lives and Maternity Incentive Scheme safety action 7 – Listen to women, birthing people, parents and families using maternity and neonatal services and coproduce services with users.