This conference was organised by Sheffield Hallam University (Hora Soltani, Professor of Maternal and Infant Health) and Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Foundation Trust (Carolyn Garland and Alison Williams, Doncaster Maternal Obesity Service coordinating midwives), with accreditation from the Royal College of Midwives.
This was the second of many maternity conferences to be jointly organised by Sheffield Hallam University and neighbouring NHS Trusts as an excellent example of collaborations among academics and clinicians to enhance knowledge transfer, share good practice and improve care for mothers and babies.
More than 120 delegates attended from across the UK, including professionals from a range of backgrounds (midwifery, physiotherapy, obstetrics, anaesthetics, health psychology and nutrition) as well as maternity user representatives, researchers, students and academics.
Dr Toni Schwarz (Head of Nursing and Midwifery, SHU) presented the opening remarks. Professor Soltani provided a background to their collaborative research work with Doncaster and how it led to organisation of these conferences. She gave an overview of maternity research in SHU, which focused on addressing matters most important to women, their families and the community as a whole. She mentioned recently successful bids with NHS Trusts (e.g. Doncaster), funded by MRC and Burdett Trust and highlighted collaborative high impact maternity research, some of which featured in the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) and has been recognised as internationally excellent.
In his closing remarks, Dr Breckon (Director of the Centre for Health and Social Care Research) acknowledged the inspiring nature of this conference, particularly the input from service users. He thanked Public Health Hub, CLAHRC YH and Slimming World for their organisational support.