NHS England has outlined a vision for maternity services to become safer, more personalised, kinder, professional and more family friendly; where every woman has access to information to enable her to make decisions about her care; and where she and her baby can access support that is centred around their individual needs and circumstances. It also aims for all staff to be supported to deliver care which is women centred, working in high performing teams, in organisations which are well led and in cultures which promote innovation, continuous learning, and break down organisational and professional boundaries.

A national Maternity Transformation Programme has been established to take forward implementation of the vision. However, Better Births recognised that delivering such a vision would rely primarily on local leadership and action. Consequently, it recommended commissioners, providers and service users coming together as Local Maternity Systems to deliver local transformation.

The South East Clinical Network is working in close partnership with Local Maternity Systems (LMS’s) across the South East to support them to establish themselves, and draw up and implement local maternity transformation plans. The 3 LMS’s in the South East are aligned to the STP footprint (Kent & Medway, Surrey Heartlands and Sussex & East Surrey). The Clinical Network will also help LMS’s understand and interpret national policy for local implementation as well as support the benchmarking of the quality of services and spread good practice from across the country. They will bring in different parts of the system as appropriate to support individual LMS’s resolve particular local issues and challenges.