Harrogate MNVP
About Harrogate MNVP
The Lead post for Harrogate Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) is
covered by Ruth, who is also our Social and Engagement Lead.
We work with a friendly group of volunteers and professionals. Together we gather
information from Maternity and Neonatal service users in our area to shape and
develop local maternity and neonatal services. We do this because your voice matters
and we want to hear about your experiences to celebrate and build on everything
positive whilst acknowledging and working on areas that could be improved.
The Harrogate MNVP is here to listen to your birth stories and feed back to the local healthcare professionals. We work together to develop local maternity and neonatal care. If you have a birthing story or anything you would like to share with us from your pre and/or postnatal journey or a question you would like to ask us, please do not hesitate to email! We are also looking for volunteers who have used the maternity services in Harrogate so if you are interested, please get in touch. All volunteers will meet with the MNVP at our virtual meetings to discuss any feedback you have collated and we will look for themes that can be identified. These themes will be taken to meetings between the volunteers and representatives from the maternity services.
Meet Your Harrogate MNVP Lead
Ruth Charlton
MNVP Lead for Harrogate
(and also the Engagement Lead)
About
Hi, I’m Ruth. I am the Lead of Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership in Harrogate.
I’m a mum of three. My eldest was born in York and my younger two in Harrogate. My professional background is in commercial sales and marketing, for a major FMCG brand. Becoming a parent made me decide I wanted to do something different so I set up my own business in Digital Marketing. I joined the MNVP in February 2022 as a volunteer. Then I applied for the Social Media and Engagement role when the job came up, and in January 2025 I became the MNVP Lead. I feel very lucky to be doing something so rewarding.
Interests
I want to make sure those using our local maternity services feel well supported in their pregnancy journey. I love chatting to everyone about pregnancy and parenting and working collaboratively with multiple organisations to make a difference.
What would you like to achieve as MNVP Lead?
My aim is to raise the profile of the MNVP in our area to ensure service user voice is well represented in all decisions. I would also like to ensure we reach all groups of users, including those who are under-represented or unheard.
Meet the Harrogate MNVP Team
Hannah Watson
Neonatal Lead
Hello! I’m Hannah and I’m thrilled to be the Neonatal Lead for Harrogate. I had my twin boys in Harrogate at 29 weeks gestation. I know some of the staff at SCBU still remember me ruining their nice peaceful Sunday afternoon! The three of us were quickly whisked off to LGI where we remained for 13 days before being transferred to St James for what ended up being 7 weeks! After some ups and downs and some of the hardest weeks of my life we were FINALLY transferred back to Harrogate for 3 further weeks before we made it home. Since then I have been working closely with the wider North Yorkshire and Humber Neonatal team to try to help improve services where possible and ensure the parent voice is always heard. This in turn has been a wonderful opportunity to meet other parents and ‘bang the drum’ about some of the fantastic things being done across the network to support families on their Neonatal journey.
Interests - absolutely anything that brings a smile to my kids’ faces. As a mum of two boys that is often some form of heavy machinery so you will often find me riding trains, buses or staring at tractors on any and all local farms.I love to sing, bake and spend time with some wonderful friends and a very supportive family.
What would you like to achieve as the Neonatal Lead? My aim is to provide as much support to families as I can manage. Neonates can be a scary and traumatic time that doesn’t end when you leave hospital, so I want everyone to know they are not alone, that I am here for any and all questions.
About our meetings and where you can find us
The MNVP meetings are made up of a small group of service users, user representatives* and healthcare professionals. Meetings are held regularly, where feedback from service users is reviewed. Updates on changes that have been implemented from previous feedback received is recorded for our annual review. The annual review is produced each year and delivered to service users at the annual ‘Your Voice Matters’ meet up which is an open event.
* User representatives: local people who are passionate about volunteering time to help, support and shape local maternity services.
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Next Meeting: our 2026 meeting dates will be uploaded shortly. Our last meeting was on Tuesday, 21 October 2025
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Venue: virtual by MS Teams (please contact hny.lms@nhs.net for the meeting link or any other details)
What we have been up to
Here are a few examples of our recent work and projects to keep you up-to-date about what we have been up to
Newsletters
Coming soon, our newsletter
Surveys
Please give us your feedback through the periodic MNVP surveys we run. You can also view the results from these surveys.
You said, we did
Coming soon, actions taken from your feedback
Quarterly Feedback
Please take a few minutes to read the feedback we presented to our last meeting in October 2025
Address
C/o Humber and North Yorkshire
Health Care Partnership,
Local Maternity and Neonatal Service,
Safe Haven (First Floor), Health House,
Grange Park Lane, Willerby, HU10 6DT
