Implementing Better Births: a Resource Pack for Local Maternity Systems sets an expectation that commissioners and providers of NHS maternity services, working together in Local Maternity Systems (LMSs), are jointly responsible for ensuring that every area is covered by a well-functioning MVP. It states that:
“The maternity commissioner is responsible for facilitating and organising any agreed funding, whether provided by the commissioner alone or in conjunction with local providers.”
It’s likely that one lead person will take responsibility for setting up the MVP and acting as the primary link with the service user leadership team (e.g. Chair and Vice-chair). This will need to be included within the post-holders job-plan and job description. If this person is not based in the LMS, it will also be helpful to identify a staff member who will be the LMS link person for your service user leadership team. Where there are multiple MVPs connected to one LMS, there may be one LMS link person responsible for connecting with all the MVPs.
Again, bearing in mind that some potential or new Chairs/service user members will be reading this new to the NHS, I suggest language as simple as possible or give examples. It may be worth putting abbreviations in full once eg LMS at the top of every page as the sections stand alone? Also, rather than ‘service-user leadership team’, why not write, ‘MVP Chair and co or vice Chair’.
(Organisation/Role of this commenter: Consultant Midwife in Public Health)
I have now spelt out any acronyms when they first appear in each section.
The phrase “service user leadership team” is used to reflect the fact that there are a range of MVP models with different paid service user roles – e.g. some MVPs may have a secretary, a finance officer, a neonatal lead or a diversity lead. Rather than replacing the phrase “service user leadership team”, I have added “(e.g. Chair and Vice-chair)” the first time the phrase appears in each section. I hope this clarifies the meaning without losing the flexibility.
I think this may be confusing as an LMS may have many more than one MVP. It may be helpful to say and LMS can be linked to more than one MVP and that the person responsible may or may not have responsibility for all the MVP linked to that LMS
(Organisation/Role of this commenter: KHFT)
Thank you, I’ve now added the following sentence: “Where there are multiple MVPs connected to one LMS, there may be one LMS link person responsible for connecting with all the MVPs.”