We have been working to improve maternity services across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent since 2016 and continue to listen to as many views and experiences of women and their families as possible, to help us progress our work.

Improving maternity services 2019 and 2021

In 2019, we held a listening exercise to understand people’s experiences of maternity services, but our work had to pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Together We’re Better, the local health and care partnership, is seeking to improve midwifery services in these areas by offering more personalised care around the needs of pregnant people and their families. You can read about the activity and reports from that involvement on the transformation journey website page.

We were able to restart this conversation in summer 2021, when we held some online events and invited people to complete a survey to help us understand the experiences of people who had given birth in the previous three years or who are planning to start or expand their family in the next few years.

For more information about this work and about our future ways of working, you can read our Issues Paper. You can also view our easy read version.

You can also watch our short video to listen to our midwives talking about potential future ways of working for maternity services.

Don’t have time for the full video? Watch our short videos below:

• What is continuity of carer and an on-demand service: https://youtu.be/Q7cUm-sAc8A
  
• Where can I give birth: https://youtu.be/kBixIg59BwU

The comments received during this involvement activity have been considered by clinicians and managers as we develop proposals to support the more personalised model of care being introduced nationally.

You can read the Report of Findings and the Summary Report of Findings.

Proposals to support an on-demand model

Our clinicians and staff are working to develop proposals to support an on-demand model – this includes exploring how we can restore births at County and Samuel Johnson, which were temporarily closed due to COVID-19.

There is more work for us to do behind the scenes before we can confirm this model will happen. We will need to listen to our staff as we look to develop a continuity of carer rota. We will also need to train and recruit new midwives to support this community model.

We will share updates as soon as we can so please keep checking this website and our social media channels for updates.