We were excited to welcome colleagues from across the West of England and beyond to a glorious gathering at the Trinity Centre in Bristol on 21 November.
The party was a chance to come together and thank everyone who has played a part in our Black Maternity Matters journey to date, and in particular to celebrate the achievements of the participants and champions of cohorts three and four.
Black Maternity Matters is a ground-breaking collaboration, supporting maternity and neonatal staff to reduce the inequitable outcomes faced by Black mothers and their babies.
In the UK, Black women still face significant disparities in maternal health outcomes, experiencing higher mortality and stillbirth rates compared to their white counterparts. These disparities are rooted in systemic biases, structural racism, and a lack of racial literacy within healthcare services.
To address these issues, Health Innovation West of England formed a collaborative with Black Mothers Matter, BCohCo and Representation Matters to develop the Black Maternity Matters initiative, which was launched in 2021 with funding from the Health Foundation through its Q Supporting local learning funding programme. The focus is on targeted anti-racism education, peer support, and quality improvement (QI) transformation projects for perinatal staff.
Telling the story of how Black Maternity Matters came into being and what it’s achieved so far, watch our new short film, which we premiered at the event.
We honoured the achievements of the maternity and neonatal staff (from Gloucestershire; Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire; Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire) who have completed the Black Maternity Matters programme in 2024, along with senior NHS colleagues from across the region who have taken part in new training developed this year specifically for leaders.
Several of our new collaborative members shared their personal experiences insights from the journey they have been on and how they are now using this new knowledge and mindset.
We were thrilled to welcome Dr Annabel Sowemimo as our guest speaker. Annabel is a doctor, academic, activist, and writer. Her first book Divided: Racism, Medicine and Decolonising Healthcare was published by Profile Books/Wellcome Collection in April 2023 and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing.
In her exploration of health inequalities, Annabel reinserts the stories of Black and Indigenous scientists and doctors into the historical narrative. She draws on the experiences of healthcare professionals, activists and academics, as well as her own, to make the urgent case for change and the decolonisation of modern medicine.
Thank you to everyone who came to our Black Maternity Matters celebration and graduation event, and to everyone who played a part in the planning and hosting of the day.
Find out more about Black Maternity Matters here, and follow us on Instagram.
And here are some more photographs from the day by the wonderful Sharon A Anderson:
Posted on December 5, 2024
