Next steps
The experiences, evidence and insights presented throughout this report highlight both the strengths of maternity care in Kirklees and the opportunities for further improvement. While this report focuses on maternity care, the themes of women's voices, advocacy and inequalities are relevant across women's health more broadly. These calls to action are intended to support meaningful change by ensuring women's voices are heard, inequalities are reduced, and every woman receives safe, personalised and compassionate care.
System leadership - What organisations across Kirklees can do
Ensure women's voices influence both individual care and wider service design. The principle of listening to, valuing and acting on women's experiences should underpin approaches across maternity services and women's health more broadly. Women should feel listened to, respected and empowered to make decisions about their own health and care. Evidence shows that women's voices are too often undervalued or ignored across a range of health and care services.
Key actions for organisations and services
- Embed women's lived experience into service improvement.
- Strengthen advocacy and peer support for women.
- Demonstrate how women's feedback has led to change.
- Reach women whose voices are least likely to be heard.
Take targeted action to reduce inequalities in maternity outcomes and experiences, while applying learning to address wider inequalities in women's health.
Key actions
- Use data and lived experience to identify priorities.
- Target support where women's inequalities are greatest.
- Improve equity of access, experience and outcomes for women.
- Measure progress and reduce variation over time.
Maternity services - What maternity services can consider
Ensure every woman can access information, understand her options and make informed decisions about her care.
Key actions
- Improve interpretation and translation support.
- Make information accessible and culturally responsive.
- Strengthen shared decision-making between women and maternity care.
- Support women to navigate services confidently.
Deliver care that is trauma-informed, culturally responsive and tailored to individual needs, preferences and circumstances.
Key actions
- Recognise and respond to women's trauma.
- Respect women's preferences and care plans.
- Improve continuity and consistency of care for women.
- Support women to feel safe, respected and believed.
Wider determinants - What partners across Kirklees can do
Recognise that improving maternity outcomes requires action beyond healthcare services alone. Poverty, transport, housing, education, employment and social isolation can all influence women's experiences and outcomes.
Key actions
- Reduce practical barriers to accessing maternity care.
- Improve support for women experiencing poverty and financial insecurity.
- Strengthen health literacy and access to information.
Communities and partnerships - What all partners can do
Work with communities and trusted local organisations to reduce inequalities, strengthen support networks and address the wider determinants of health.
Key actions
- Expand community-based support.
- Strengthen links between services and local assets.
- Address barriers such as poverty, transport and isolation.
- Support women's health before, during and between pregnancies through prevention, early intervention, improved access to preconception care and wider women's health support across the life course.
Listening to women is not an optional extra - it is fundamental to improving care. While this report focuses on maternity care, the lessons are relevant across women's health more broadly. By acting on women's experiences, strengthening advocacy and addressing inequalities, Kirklees can continue to build services that are safer, fairer and more responsive to the needs of women and families. When women feel heard, respected and supported, outcomes improve not only during pregnancy and birth, but across women's health and throughout the life course.
