Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) Neonatal Lead

NHS Staffordshire & Stoke On Trent Integrated Care Board; Stafford; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Part time

Job summary

A regional health care provider is seeking an MNVP Neonatal Lead to enhance the experience of neonatal services for families. You will lead community engagement, gather feedback, and ensure user voices drive improvements in care quality and safety. This role requires lived experience within the last three years and strong communication skills. Flexible home-based/hybrid work environment offered.

Qualifications

• Experience using maternity and neonatal services within the last three years.
• Ability to travel for community engagement.

Responsibilities

• Lead engagement with service users and gather feedback.
• Promote MNVP and represent local families' views.
• Chair MNVP Forum meetings to ensure stakeholder contribution.

Skills

Communication skills

Understanding sensitive topics

Organizational skills

Job description

Go back NHS Staffordshire & Stoke On Trent Integrated Care Board

MNVP Neonatal Lead – Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP)

The closing date is 21 September 2025

Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) listens to the experiences of women, birthing people and families, and brings together service users, staff and other stakeholders to plan, review and improve maternity and neonatal care across the system.

Are you passionate about helping to develop and improve the experience of neonatal services for babies and their families who require neonatal care?

Are you passionate about ensuring that service users voices are at the heart of decision-making, influencing improvements in the quality, safety and experience of neonatal care?

We are recruiting an MNVP Neonatal Lead, who brings the expertise of women/birthing people with lived experience of neonatal services within Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent, ensuring that every woman and birthing person on the neonatal pathway has the chance to have their voice heard.

This new role has a crucial position within the MNVP Forum and membership, which makes and monitors plans for the MNVP, and guides the progress of the partnership.

This is an exciting opportunity to review, shape and improve services and make a real difference to local women, birthing people and their families.

The Bank MNVP Neonatal Lead must be a service user with lived experience of maternity and neonatal services and not employed by the local trust or system. This ensures an independent, authentic voice

Main duties of the job

To be the lead contact for engagement with Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent neonatal service users, to gather feedback, experiences, stories of their neonatal journey — specifically seeking out the voices of seldom heard communities, families living in the most deprived areas, and bereaved families

Promote the work of the MNVP and amplify the voices and views of local women, birthing people, and families

Attend a range of meetings and events, liaising with service users, communities, and service providers to ensure that the voice and views of local families are represented and play an integral part in the design and delivery of maternity and neonatal services

Work in collaboration with the MNVP Maternity Lead, as an independent critical friend to service providers

Attend and jointly Chair, with the MNVP Maternity Lead, the MNVP Forum meetings, ensuring stakeholders can, and do, contribute

About us

The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB) is responsible for planning functions; managing the NHS budget and arranging the provision of health services in the geographical area.

Location: Home-based/hybrid working (most posts). Travel on occasions to a Hub location with at least 1 day’s notice

New starters are expected to collect IT equipment from offices in Stoke-on-Trent, and if based at home are required to have appropriate desk/chair/relevant equipment in compliance with DSE regulations

Posts at Band 8c and above will take part in the On-call rota, flexible over 7 days, supporting the System Control Centre, with full training provided.

Unconscious Bias/Invisible Disability Training and Equality Induction are mandatory.

Interviews may take place via MS Teams or in person

We promote a compassionate and inclusive environment and welcome applications from a diverse pool of talent and backgrounds. All individuals are valued and given every opportunity to succeed based on merit.

The ICB embraces the principles of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and encourages applications from all individuals regardless of their age, disability, gender re-assignment, marital or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, sex or sexual orientation. It’s important that our workforce reflects the diversity of communities as much as possible.

Job responsibilities

The three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services recognises that listening and responding to all women and families is an essential part of safe and high-quality care. Listening to women and their families with compassion improves the safety and experience of those using maternity and neonatal services.

Maternity and neonatal voices partnerships (MNVPs) ensure that service user voices are at the heart of decision making in maternity and neonatal services. Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent MNVP neonatal lead will facilitate inclusive engagement and gather feedback, experiences, stories of local families’ maternity and neonatal journey.

The MNVP Neonatal Lead is responsible for delivering the agreed objectives of the MNVP, as set out in the annual workplan, and is expected to use their influence to drive the delivery of highly effective and visible outcomes, specifically seeking out the voices of seldom heard communities, families living in the most deprived areas, and bereaved families.

The Neonatal Lead will connect, and network with interested parties and MNVP members, as well as users of neonatal services, and professionals, to enable coproduction of projects, ensuring they are shaped around the needs of the service users. The Neonatal Lead will work with the provider trusts within the LMNS, University Hospital North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) and Queens Hospital Burton (QHB) within University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB).

Main Job Responsibilities

• Act as a conduit linking the thoughts and feelings of service users to staff across the ICB, via the LMNS, who can enable change and escalate concern to relevant organisations
• Attend and jointly chair the MNVP Forum meetings, ensuring stakeholders can, and do, contribute.
• Work with the MNVP Maternity Lead, to feedback information to service providers
• Attend LMNS Partnership Board meetings and LMNS Quality and Oversight Forum meetings, providing service user feedback.
• Ensure that a minimum of 30% of the hours each month are dedicated to engaging with service users and families to collect feedback on their neonatal journey and listen to experiences, with a specific focus on connecting with families from seldom heard communities, families living in the most deprived local areas, and bereaved families
• Work collaboratively with the MNVP Maternity Lead to continue and progress the work of the MNVP
• Gather, and work with Maternity and Neonatal Champions in the team to gather service user feedback of their neonatal journey, identify themes and represent these views
• Liaise with fellow MNVP Neonatal Leads within the surrounding areas, as well as regional and national networks
• Promote the MNVP to local service users
• Recruit, support, and coordinate Maternity and Neonatal Champions/service user representatives, in collaboration with the MNVP Maternity Lead
• Develop links with third party sector organisations e.g. charities, support groups, religious groups
• Ensure meetings are accessible and promote engagement and participation
• Contribute to generating solutions to identified improvement areas within neonatal care
• Overall responsibility for maintaining Facebook Maternity and Neonatal Champions private group
• In collaboration with the MNVP Maternity Lead, identify and implement strategies to reach out/engage with specific communities and organisations to ensure membership of the MNVP is representative of the diversity within the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent population
• Support the MNVP in promoting the MNVP to professionals/service providers
• Promote buy-in to the MNVP from service users and third-party sectors
• Act as a conduit from the MNVP team to the LMNS and wider ICB members
• Support with induction and training of new Maternity and Neonatal Champions, or remunerated positions within the MNVP
• Provide input to the development of an annual work plan and highlight report for the MNVP.
• Familiarise themselves with the national guidance and documentation from National Health Service England
• Act in accordance with the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent System Leadership Compact: trust, courage, openness and honesty, leading by example, respect, kindness and compassion, system first, looking forward
• Work with the Commissioner of perinatal services, to manage and maintain the MNVP Budget, providing costings in the annual work plan and report, accurate monthly budget updates reported into the Forum

Person Specification

Experience

• A basic understanding of maternity and neonatal services
• Personal experience of using maternity and neonatal services in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent within the last three years

Personal Qualities

• A kind, caring and understanding manner, able to have conversations with a wide range of people about their personal experiences and listen. Sometimes the information people share is sensitive and traumatic.
• Enthusiasm for working with a diverse range of volunteers who are passionate about improving maternity and neonatal care for women and their families
• A desire to develop a broader knowledge of the geographical and cultural diversity across the LMNS
• An ability to delegate tasks to the MNVP membership
• Organisational skills to ensure that targets are met and feedback delivered to the appropriate trust
• Basic IT skills to produce reports, respond to emails and access online information. Access to a laptop and Wifi is essential.
• The successful applicant will be required to attend mandatory training as requested by Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB and will be made available to them
• Wider experience of using other local health services is desirable
• A previous role in voluntary or charitable work or experience of corporate governance

Flexibility

• The ability to travel around the area to ensure that all communities are represented and their voices heard
• The ability to attend occasional evening meetings

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer name

NHS Staffordshire & Stoke On Trent Integrated Care Board

£19.78 to £23.82 an hourThis is a bank role and pay is calculated by hours worked