Shaping the North East and North Cumbria Maternity and Neonatal Services

At the Local Maternity and Neonatal System for the North East and North Cumbria (LMNS NENC) we set about creating an event bringing together people from across the system. The purpose of the event was to set a vision and a direction for how maternity and neonatal teams across the North East and North Cumbria deliver their services.

Following publication of new guidance from NHS England, which brings together the previous deliverables – or objectives for LMNSs and the recommendations from the East Kent and Shrewsbury and Telford reports, the event was set up to see how we plan to respond to this, and set out our vision for how we want services to be in our region.

We enlisted independent facilitators – Ian Railton and Laura Woodward from Verandern. As experienced facilitators, they helped us design the event to get the most out of the day.

Over 80 people attended the over-subscribed event which took place at Durham Cricket Club. It included clinical leads, commissioners, public health and representatives from Maternity Voices Partnerships.

We didn’t want the day to be a “death by PowerPoint” experience for delegates, so we designed it so that most of the time was dedicated to group work. We prepared delegates prior to arrival – that they would be putting the “work” into workshop. So, after some brief scene setting, Ian and Laura set everyone to their tasks.

The morning was spent working in small groups to co-produce with a mixture of people a shared view of what a better future for women, babies, families and staff. What would that look like and how would it feel to the different groups. We went a bit wedding planner and created a seating arrangement so that we had a good mix of people on each table.

The groups then presented these back and some key themes emerged:

  • Workforce and Training
  • Personalised Care
  • Safety Culture
  • Collaboration
  • Equity, Equality and Access
  • Prevention
  • Data and Digital
  • Communication and Language

Delegates then got to choose which theme they would like to explore in more detail for the afternoon.

You can read the report which summarises the key outputs from the day.

We will be providing further updates on how we take this work forward. If you have any questions about this, please contact us at: [email protected]

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