Could you be our
new vice lead?
Leading the MNVP with a focus on communication and coproduction
WE ARE RECRUITING
Vice Lead - Communication and Coproduction
Royal Berkshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership is recruiting for a new Vice Lead to work alongside the current Lead to strategically deliver against our Workplan, support our established team and work in partnership with RBFT to coproduce change. All Leads have full safeguarding training and have mandatory Clinical Supervision once a month and Group Reflective Practice once a quarter.
All roles are offered on a self-employed basis working flexibly. The successful candidate needs to be able to work during school hours with a flexible early start (8am) twice a month and be able to commit to in person meetings, a minimum, of once a month in Reading, and commit to our quarterly main meetings. The role offers flexibility to manage workload during school holidays around childcare needs and allows you to have a fulfilling, rewarding role in the MNVP and a working schedule that flexes with your life.
Our funding means this role is funded until April 2027 but it is likely to be continued into 27/28. The role offers on average 10hrs a week (40 hrs a month) pay is £25/hour plus all necessary out of pocket expenses.
First hand experience of using maternity services as a birthing person or partner (ideally at the RBH) is essential for the role - we don't ask for any formal qualifications but a passion for improving maternity and a proactive approach will allow you to thrive in the role. The successful candidate will be local to Reading or surrounding areas. Read on for more detail about the role, and an example of what a working month could look like and a note from our outgoing Lead to tell you more about her role highlights.
What makes a good MNVP Vice Lead?
The successful candidate will be comfortable in a leadership position, able to inspire others and work independently on project based work with an emphasis on improving communications and making improvements within maternity and neonatal services . Strong communication and language skills are essential. Service user feedback drives our work and the Vice Lead will be responsible for representing our communities voices in Trust and Board Level meetings. They will advocate for change and share our feedback themes as part of the MNVP's role as a critical friend. Those voices and feedback themes are embedded across changes taking place within the Trust, the Vice Lead will work closely with midwives, obstetricians and the wider maternity teams to make improvements to policy, operations, communications and patient information leaflets.
The role covers four main themes: Representing Service User Voice; Coproduction; Online Data Collection and Analysis; Running an Effective MNVP. All of which are underpinned by listening, responding and acting on feedback.
Representing Service User Voice
As a Vice Lead you will read and understand the feedback, identify the key themes and keep these at the forefront of improvements. You'll also have an awareness of the wider maternity landscape, national reviews and reports. You’ll be confident sharing feedback in online steering groups with RBFT and in the wider ICB. You attend these meetings to represent the Service User and will be confident in speaking up and offering your perspective, informed by the feedback you hear, offering suggestions for improvements and feeding these into coproduction workstreams.
We play a key role in Perinatal Reviews both locally and nationally. You will attend Perinatal Mortality Reviews twice a month and will be part of the upcoming local and regional reviews.
Online Data Collection and Analysis
The Vice Lead manages how we gather feedback online. They will have a good understanding of how to structure and build surveys and an analytical mind able to read data and qualitative feedback in equal measure. The Vice Lead helps structure surveys alongside various teams from RBFT and generate messaging and posts to share our surveys online.
A good working knowledge of Survey Monkey would be advantageous but not essential as training can be arranged. You’ll also analyse our online feedback to produce our quarterly reports and summaries to share our feedback themes.
Coproduction
Our current leadership team share the workload with the Lead responsible for publicly representing the MNVP, partnering with the community and maintaining the high level meetings with the Senior Leadership Team, amongst other duties. The roles compliment each other well and allow for cross working and collaboration while allowing a focus that plays to each Leads strengths.
The Vice Lead has more of a focus on coproduction working closely with the Lead Midwives, Consultant Midwives and stakeholders to structure campaigns and surveys to gather feedback on a variety of topics. You’ll work closely with the maternity teams to create, edit and introduce policies and information in a variety of formats.
Running an Effective MNVP
The Vice Lead works closely with the current Lead to manage the MNVP workload and ensure joined up working. Together they hold a strategic view of the MNVP, manage the day to day running alongside our Finance and Operations Lead, and oversee our budgets and finance applications and approve timesheets and expenses. As a team they chair our quarterly meetings and review and analyse feedback to provide executive summaries, themes and shape feedback presentations for discussion at our main meetings. Together you’ll support the Community Engagement Leads and Neonatal Lead to deliver against our joint workplans.
What does my working week look like?
Through the working week you will have meetings to attend with your MNVP Team, RBFT and the wider ICB. Approximately 1-2 times a month there will be in person meetings at the RBH where your travel time is also paid. There will be times when you are working from home on projects, coproduction and preparing for meetings. There is some flexibility to arrange meetings to suit your working week and you’ll work closely with the Lead to check availability and manage the MNVP Workload. There is flexibility to save hours during half term (for example) to use at a later date, allowing you to add additional hours and prioritise other parts of your life when needed. To visualise what your working month could look like…
Could this be the role for you?
To apply please complete this short form to tell us more about you and why you're passionate about improving maternity services. You can also tell us more about your availability and how this role would work in your life. If you have any difficulties completing the form, or want to have a chat before applying please email chair@royalberkshiremnvp.org. Suitable applicants will be interviewed on a rolling basis so apply as soon as possible.
We want to increase the diversity of the MNVP and ensure we are representative of the community we advocate for. We particularly welcome applications from people of the global majority, LGBTQIA+ people, neurodivergent people and disabled people. We will use positive action under the Equality Act 2010 to appoint from these under-represented groups if two candidates are equally suitable.
Hear from our outgoing Lead
Hi! I'm Danni and after 5 years it's time for me to move on and pass the baton. I'm excited to meet the next Lead and to help you get set up and ready to thrive in the role.
I'll look forward to talking more - feel free to pop me an email if you have questions but have a listen to my voice note here about the best bits of being a Lead at Royal Berks MNVP and see a few photos from my five years in post...
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