Over the past few months our volunteers have been going into the maternity wards and talking to families to get feedback on the maternity services. This is a picture of us with the team leader midwives after reporting back from a morning on the Antenatal ward at LGI.

Following on from our maternity survey we have been working with the trust to update on areas that are important to you.

‘You said’ you felt your partner/father needed to be included more in the pregnancy – we can report that all birth partners are now allowed to stay over in the antenatal ward. ‘You said’ you wanted information to be easier to understand – we can report that the trust now have a nominated member of staff with ‘I’m here to listen’ as a point of reference for women and families to go for any issues or concerns in each area.

The formal MVP has provided space for professionals and service users to meet and discuss important engagement in how to support fathers and birth partners in their role for breastfeeding support. The trust has employed two Infant Feeding Coordinators who provide support covering both sites to help support women with breastfeeding.

The MVP took part in the ALWAYS event run by the trust and the patient experience team and through an engagement exercise they provided two vision statements:

• I always expect to be offered the opportunity to have skin to skin contact with my baby for as long as I want
• I always expect to receive consistent information about skin to skin contact with my baby