What has the AIMS campaigns team been doing?

AIMS Journal, 2021, Vol 33, No 1

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By the AIMS Campaigns Team

What we’ve been working on:

• A response to the draft NICE guidelines on Neonatal Infection www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/nice-neonatal-infection-guideline-comments and Shared Decision Making www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/nice-shared-decision-making-guideline-comments
• Updating the coronavirus webpage www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/coronavirus and template letters www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/template-letters with new guidance for England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland, plus guidance for parents of babies in a neonatal unit
• A new series of AIMS Position Papers - watch this space!
• Continuity of Carer: relaunching our policy/campaigns team to focus on how AIMS can best contribute to policy implementation
• Ockenden: We have two initial responses - Getting to grips with the first Ockenden Report and what it means for the Maternity Transformation Programme and AIMS commentary on the Ockenden Interim Report, and are working on a further detailed AIMS response. We are also reviewing how local Trust Boards are considering the report and the ‘immediate and essential actions’
• ButNotMaternity Alliance: Working with other organisations to lobby for partner attendance to be enabled throughout the maternity services
• Correspondence with the chair of the Maternity Transformation Programme Board, Sarah-Jane Marsh, requesting a progress report on the barriers and opportunities presented by existing NHS financial policies as we seek to transform maternity care through the introduction of a relational model of midwifery care (Continuity of Carer).
• Correspondence with NHS England, where - under the banner of modernising the NHS- we have argued that it’s time to ditch the terminology of ‘shared decision making’, and invited Sir Simon Stephens (CEO) to support us in this campaign.
• Correspondence with the Health and Social Care Select Committee on the issue of ‘normal birth’: we argue that the maternity services need to step up to be ‘Better Birth’ compliant and to always offer physiology-informed care, and we have invited Jeremy Hunt MP, current chair of this Committee, to support this agenda. Find our letter here: www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/letter-to-jeremy-hunt-normal-birth.

Conferences/meetings attended:

• 15th International Labour and Birth Research Conference, 2-4 December
• NMPA Clinical Reference Group, 3 December
• Leeds School of Art online open lecture, 9 December
• NPEU Virtual Conference, 10-11 December
• London Maternity and Midwifery Festival, 12 January
• City Research Seminar on Decision making during labour in midwifery-led units, 18 January
• NHS England’s Maternity Transformation Programme’s Stakeholder Council, 21 January
• Midwifery Unit Network seminar on decision making in practice, 26 January
• All Ireland Maternity & Midwifery Festival, 9 February
• Continuity of Carer Implementation: the Oldham Journey, 12 February

What we’ve been reading:

• Guidance from all four nations of the UK on partner attendance in maternity care during the pandemic. See our coronavirus birth information page www.aims.org.uk/information/item/coronavirus for further details.
• Guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine on parents attendance in neonatal units.See our coronavirus birth information page www.aims.org.uk/information/item/coronavirus#post-heading-17 for more information
• MBRRACE perinatal and maternal surveillance reports www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk
• Ockenden Report part 1 www.england.nhs.uk/publication/ockenden-review-of-maternity-services, published December 10, and follow up responses from NHS-E&I
• Article “Homebirthing in the United Kingdom during COVID-19" journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0968533220955224 by Romanis E.C. & Nelson A. Medical Law International 20:30, 183-200 September 2020
• The 2nd edition of Margaret Jowitt’s book Dynamic Positions in Birth
• Findings of the WRISK report “Users’ experiences of COVID-19 maternity service changes” wrisk.org/uncategorized/the-wrisk-covid-report version 2 December 2020
• Article “Consent in pregnancy - an observational study of ante-natal care of Montgomery: all about risk?” BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 21, 102 (2021). doi.org/10.1186/s12884-021-03574-2
• Article ‘Unpacking the complexities of de-implementing inappropriate health interventions.’ Implementation Sci 15, 2 (2020). doi.org/10.1186/s13012-019-0960-9

What we’ve been watching:

• Netflix “Pieces of a Woman” - a sensitive Netflix original film featuring a home birth and a neonatal death. UK charity SANDS have created a short video to accompany the film, including a Q&A with the scriptwriter Kata Wéber and lead actor Vanessa Kirby, drawing out how SANDS hopes that this film will help to ‘break the silence’ of the taboo that is baby loss. You can find the SANDS video on their website here: Pieces Of A Woman | Sands - Stillbirth and neonatal death charity¹
  The film also deals with issues relating to the experiences of Agnes Gereb, and you can read more about Agnes Gereb here: www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/agnes-gereb

Thanks to the Campaigns Steering Group - Nadia Higson, Debbie Chippington Derrick, Anne Glover and Jo Dagustun - and the following contributors:

• Work around Shared Decision Making, including the NICE guideline: Jo Dagustun and Belinda Brooks
• NICE Guideline on Neonatal Infection: Tasha Knights, Rachel Boldero and Anne Glover
• NICE Guideline on Caesarean: Tasha Knights, Rachel Boldero and Debbie Chippington Derrick
• NICE Guideline on Postnatal Care: Julie Milan, Holly Gresswell and Nadia Higson
• ‘Black Mothers’ research summary: Hannah King and Dessie Lovelace-Hanson
• Position Paper on Freebirthing: Nadia Higson, Jo Dagustun and Gemma McKenzie
• MBRRACE report on perinatal mortality in twin births: Shane Ridley
• Ockenden Response work: Jo Dagustun and Anna Madeley
• Letter to Society and College of Radiographers (SCoR) on partners and scans: Emma Ashworth and Nadia Higson
• Updates to the webpage ‘Coronavirus and your maternity care’ and AIMS template letters: Nadia Higson
• Continuity of Carer Campaign: Jo Dagustun and Naomi Tolsen

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with campaigns@aims.org.uk if you would like to be involved in any AIMS campaigning activities.

See all Campaign Team updates

1 www.sands.org.uk/pieces-of-a-woman