Get involved in our new maternity project!

In the next few months, Healthwatch Greenwich will be carrying out a piece of research on the maternity experiences of asylum seeking or recently migrated women/birthing people.

This work has been funded by the South East London Local Maternity and Neonatal System, a partnership of maternity and neonatal service providers, commissioners, local authorities, and maternity voice partnerships working together to transform maternity services across south east London.

Our project is part of a broader programme of community engagement focused on women and birthing people from certain communities and with protected characteristics who have been shown to have disproportionately poorer outcomes and experience of maternity care.

Healthwatch Greenwich has an established network of partner organisations working with these communities. We provide regular drop-in sessions with these organisations, speaking to their members on their experiences of health and social care in the borough.  Our most recent report on the experiences of maternity care amongst women of colour from a refugee or migrant background can be found here.

While maternity staff within the NHS do their best to support women, many asylum-seeking/migrant women have additional barriers to overcome. Getting used to a new healthcare system, language barriers, a lack of community or family support in the UK and having already been through traumatic circumstances are challenges many asylum-seeking and recently migrated women/birthing people experience.

Healthwatch Greenwich is committed to using participatory and co-production methods and to bring people and communities into the research process as experts by experience. As such, we will be recruiting a group of asylum seeking/recently migrated women/birthing people as partners and ‘co-researchers’ to support the design, delivery, and development of this project. This is a paid position, details of which can be found in our information sheet below.

If you’re interested in learning more about this project, want to apply to become a co-researcher, or are a voluntary or community group working with these communities, please contact Jahan, our Social Research Manager:

jahan@healthwatchgreenwich.co.uk