At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, all NHS maternity services had to make changes to their service delivery in order to:
- protect service users and their babies
- to protect staff providing the services, and
- to ensure continued provision of essential care as the wider NHS coped with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Maternity Voices Partnership (MVP) for Calderdale and Huddersfield along with a couple of other local MVPs, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG), Local Authorities and the NHS wanted to understand the impact of the changes that were introduced in the first period of lockdown and local restrictions (March 2020-August 2020) on expectant and new parents and families. A joint survey was developed, and local engagement was launched in order to gather the views of those using local maternity services here at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT) and Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust (MYHT).
The survey went live on 30 July 2020 and was open for 4 weeks. Survey responses were analysed and findings can be found in the report below.
Following publication of this report, the MVP for Calderdale and Huddersfield will be working closely with Maternity Services at CHFT and we will help identify support any initiatives that arise from this feedback.
We are ever so grateful to all those who completed the survey and to Researchers at the University of Huddersfield who helped analyse the data – Thank you.