A unique perspective: Seeing both sides of the story

7 Apr 2026

Meg uses her dual experience of maternity care and as a service user representative to explain why both patient voice and data must form the cornerstone of healthcare improvement.

Meg, who has been part of HQIP’s Service User Network (SUN) for a number of years, offers an interesting patient perspective. As an antenatal teacher in her professional life, she has a wealth of experience in maternity improvement at local, regional and national levels. So, with a ‘foot in both camps’, we were keen to know what Meg has to say about the value of patient voice and data in improving healthcare…

Her involvement began more than a decade ago with her local Maternity Services Liaison Committee, which later became a Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership. Over the years she chaired her local network, contributed to regional maternity systems, and participated in national projects centred on patient safety, coproduction and service improvement. This experience nurtured a deep belief that “healthcare can only improve when the people who use it are actively shaping it.”

The power of patient voice

As such, Meg is a long-time advocate for embedding service user voices into every layer of healthcare – from individual care experiences to national policy and audit. She summarises it simply: “understanding lived experience helps the system to ask the right questions, and avoids floundering in the dark.” Co-production, in particular, is something that Meg is keen to stress has many benefits for service providers and patients alike.

Healthcare can only improve when the people who use it are actively shaping it”

“Working collaboratively with patients to design services helps to get things right the first time, reducing costs and inefficiencies. It also ensures that people can access the right care in the right way, helping to address inequalities.” Importantly, Meg can see that it could play a key role in one of the biggest issues currently affecting healthcare: “By working together, we can identify risk early and prevent harm; particularly in areas like maternity, where safety concerns have been so prominent.”

The greater power of patient voice and evidence

This brings Meg to data. She feels that patient voice brings context to data, offering insight into what is happening ‘on the ground’. With patients involved in designing care, people “have trust in data and the decisions made,” she says. More generally, Meg stresses the value of using healthcare data when developing services, but suggests its value is more nuanced than that: “The true value of data lies in not only answering the questions we already have, but also in its ability to provide insights into the issues we never realised existed.”

The MBRRACE-UK maternal mortality findings loom large as an example. When looking at 2014-16 data, this HQIP-commissioned programme found that women from Black ethnic backgrounds had five times the risk of maternal mortality, compared to white women. After a national focus and targeted strategies, prompted by the data, the disparity was reduced to around double 2021-23. “Still unacceptable, but evidence of significant progress. But, without data it would still be five times – or worse!” Meg is keen to stress how widely trusted MBRRACE-UK data is, and how midwives, obstetricians and a variety of others working in maternity depend on it: “Its reliability and careful methodology mean it informs everyday clinical decisions as well as national improvements.”

From data to action

For Meg, collecting data is only the beginning. “We need to use it,” she emphasises – not just analyse endlessly. She points to the way that maternal mortality data has been translated into equity strategies across England’s ICBs, quoting the following examples:

• More culturally competent care
• Specific clinical conversations, such as guidance around vitamin D
• Training to challenge structural and personal biases
• Changes to how care is delivered in communities where risks are highest.

The true value of data lies in not only answering the questions we already have, but also in its ability to provide insights into the issues we never realised existed”

This, she says, is a powerful example of data “moving from spreadsheet to strategy to real-world change”.

The power of the SUN

Meg describes discovering HQIP during a period of postgraduate study in public health, and being drawn to the chance to broaden her involvement beyond maternity. The idea of contributing to work that cuts across healthcare appealed to her. What she found confirmed her hopes. “Voices are constantly being asked for,” she explains. “It feels like a genuinely embedded part of HQIP’s work.” Knowing that service user perspectives are both sought and meaningfully included has built her trust in the outputs – even for projects she hasn’t personally worked on.

It feels meaningful…it’s not a tick-box exercise”

Since joining the HQIP ‘s Service User Network (SUN), Meg has taken part in a wide range of activities, including:

• Judging the HQIP Clinical Audit Awards, which allowed her to see outstanding practice in diverse areas such as patient safety and sustainability
• Inputting into audit development and contributing to national audit work
• Speaking to clinicians and stakeholders about coproduction, helping reinforce why it matters and how it can transform services.

Across these experiences, Meg emphasises how valuable it is to work with a well-run, responsive network. One of the strongest positives she identifies is the absence of tokenism. “It feels meaningful,” she says. “It’s not a tick-box exercise.” Knowing that her contributions will influence real work and real outcomes gives her a sense of purpose. Meg also stresses the wider societal benefit: “involving people with lived and diverse experiences helps to ensure that healthcare is genuinely usable, equitable and trustworthy.”

In terms of challenges, she raises one note of potential concern: namely, the need for audits to steer clear of ‘political’ influence. While she acknowledges that this is common across many sectors, she emphasises how crucial it is – especially in healthcare – for audit voices to be able to tell the full story: “otherwise the system risks missing opportunities to prevent harm.”

Looking ahead to the future

Meg is hopeful about the progress that has been made through a combination clinical audit and patient engagement, in maternity and beyond. However, she is cautious about repeated cycles of inquiries, saying that there needs to be an equal emphasis on acting quickly with what is already known.

But her overall message is clear: service user involvement, high quality audit and meaningful use of data are all fundamental to safer, more equitable and more compassionate healthcare. And she believes networks like HQIP’s SUN are crucial to making that happen.

Further information

• HQIP’s Service User Network (SUN)
• More about patient engagement at HQIP
• HQIP-commissioned national clinical audits and programmes
• Reports from HQIP programmes on a range of topics, from asthma to vascular care
• Patient Perspective: Why Patients are the Route to Real Results
• Article: How the National Audit of Eating Disorders (NAED) is placing the voices of people with lived experience at the centre of its work
• Patient POV: HQIP patient advocate, Aurora explains how she and her peers are guiding national obesity care
• Article: The Power of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in Healthcare Improvement
• Patient voice in clinical audit: A powerful partnership improving asthma and COPD care