Public engagement
Our engagement approach sets out how people with experience of maternity care in Scotland can share their experiences to inform our review of maternity services across Scotland.
We see women, birthing people, families and communities as central to this review as they are the focus of maternity care. A Women, Birthing people, Families and Communities Advisory Group will be involved throughout and provide input and advice to the process. Insights from NHS staff who provide maternity care is also central to our capacity to learn and the Professional and Expert Advisory Group will also provide input to the process.
Engagement should include the diversity of Scotland’s maternity population and NHS staff, students and other relevant contributors. This includes people from different regions of Scotland including rural and island areas, various social and ethnic backgrounds and gender and sexualities. We have planned a range of ways that people can contact us and contribute to the review. These are set out in more detail in the methodology.
How can parents who have experienced loss or harm contribute?
This review remit does not include investigation of individual cases as the focus is on whole system lessons but learning from the experiences of women and families who have experienced harm or loss is a vital part of this process.
Parents have several routes to contact us and to participate and share their experiences and insights:
- Please contact ScotlandMaternityReview@citystgeorges.ac.uk where you can share your contact details and reason for getting in touch. A member of the review team will respond to arrange further contact as appropriate.
- Via user and advocacy organisations represented on the Women, Families and Communities advisory group
- In round table meetings that will be organised in different venues across Scotland and co-facilitated by Advisory Group members
- In Listening Events that will be held in a range of communities across Scotland.
How can parents with maternity service experience, and staff and students who have worked in maternity services, contribute?
The same routes will be available to all parents with experience of maternity services in the last 5 years and maternity staff and students with experience of working in them who wish to contribute.
For maternity staff, professional organisations and people with expertise on organisation of health services and on professional education will have representation on a Maternity Professionals and Experts Advisory Group.
A trauma-informed approach
Contributing to a review maybe be challenging when this involves sharing difficult and distressing experiences, harm or loss. This can be relevant to a range of participants including maternity staff as well as women, birthing people and families. The review team aims to ensure we take a trauma-informed approach to discussions and interviews, sensitive to the experiences and wellbeing of those involved. We are mindful that those who have experienced loss, harm or trauma, whether as NHS patients or staff, the desire to contribute is strongly motivated by wanting to see improvement in future. This will be our focus, and we aim to ensure that all contributions are treated with care.
We will provide assurance of confidentiality and data protection. In individual interviews we will ensure these take place in a place where the person feels comfortable. We will be clear that participants in interviews should not feel pressured to answer any specific questions and can take breaks whenever they wish. We will also provide information on sources of support wherever possible. We will also ask all participants in meetings to respect their fellow participants’ confidentiality and to listen and respond to others with the sensitivity and respect they would wish for themselves.
To contact the review team please email ScotlandMaternityReview@citystgeorges.ac.uk.