Campaign Update: What has the AIMS Campaigns team been doing?

AIMS Journal, 2020, Vol 32, No 2

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Other quarterly updates

• We reviewed the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) 2019 survey of women’s experiences of maternity care.¹
• We wrote a letter to the key stakeholders² concerning the importance of maintaining support for homebirths and birth centres during the coronavirus pandemic.
• We reviewed and submitted comments on the NHS “Clinical Guide to Trusts on Maternity Service arrangements during the Coronavirus period”.³
• We created a new Birth Information page, ‘Coronavirus and your maternity care’.⁴ We are regularly reviewing guidance from the Royal College of Midwives and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in order to keep the information on this page up-to-date.
• We revised our Birth Information page ‘Booking a Home Birth’ to include information and a template letter⁵ for mothers who have had support for a homebirth refused due to service restrictions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
• We have created a set of template letters⁶ for those struggling to get their support needs met during the coronavirus pandemic.
• We have also created 2 template letters for Birth Activists. One to send to their Director/Head of Midwifery to query restrictions on homebirth services, and one to send to the MVP chair to check whether decisions about changes to maternity services are being made in accordance with the NHS guidance.⁷

1. 'The CQC 2019 survey of women’s experiences of maternity care' https://www.aims.org.uk/journal/item/cqc-2019

2. Letter available on the 'Coronavirus and the Maternity Services' page on the AIMS website https://www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/coronavirus#post-heading-3

3. 'AIMS Response to the NHS Clinical Guide to Trusts on Maternity Service arrangements during the Coronavirus period' https://www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/response-clinical-guidance-coronovirus

4. ‘Coronavirus and your maternity care’ https://www.aims.org.uk/information/item/coronavirus

5. 'Booking a Home Birth' https://www.aims.org.uk/information/item/booking-a-home-birth#post-heading-2

6. Template letters https://www.aims.org.uk/information/item/template-letters

7. 'Template Campaigning Letters about Maternity Services during the pandemic' https://www.aims.org.uk/campaigning/item/template-letters