43. #WildObs Part 2 - Christmas Special, 2022

As we hit the festive season, join me and my 'magic mate', Florence Wilcock, as we  reflect on 2022 and have a little fun.

Florence is a consultant obstetrician, a great friend and my co-founder of #MatExp. We chat about some of our key advent-ures in 2022, building on the #WildObs podcast we recorded at the end of 2021.

Florence hosts the informative and engaging The Obs Pod podcast, talking about all things maternity from the perspective of a person-centred obstetrician. It has something for everyone.

We are looking forward to 2023, particularly working on the new digital Family Integrated Care project, helping neonatal teams understand the experience of parents with a baby on a neonatal unit. This #QExchange project builds directly on ‘Nobody’s Patient’, which Florence masterminded.

It is wonderful to have people like Florence, Lyse Edwards and Mary Salama on board who really get the Whose Shoes approach and will bring creativity and humanity to ensure that it is a really engaging facilitation tool. Watch this space.

Lemon lightbulbs 🍋🍋🍋

•  Take time to reflect on what has been achieved before tackling the next challenge
• Have fun! Your childhood only expires if you let it 
•  Lemon lightbulbs and poetry aid coproduction 
•  If you want to share good stuff online, you need a single click! 
•  Ripples build over time – don’t get despondent if things seem slow
•  The Fête du Citron in Menton is awesome! Go if you can!
• #IntentionalCoffee helps build networks
• 'End of year' spending sprees may not get the best outcomes
• Ripples continue from Rosie Murphy's innovative ‘BAME’ Whose Shoes work in Croydon 
• ...  and from our pan-London events around maternity triage and ‘handover’ 
• The ‘black maternity experience’ report MATTERS
• Miles Sibley is one to watch! 😊 –Uncorking the bottle around evidence
• Outdoors is great for maternal mental health events!
• Be creative – find a way to do something that at first seems impossible
• Support paramedics to be confident in responding to maternity and neonatal emergencies
• The power of a blank sheet of paper!
• Being present at your grandson’s birth is VERY special!
• Look out for FAB Ted NHS talks by Florence Wilcock, Yvonne Newbold and more
• We'll always remember being together in Oxford when the Queen died
• The ripples continue from our Oxford event – including mutual learning with Kingston
• Our podcasts are creating strong connections around the world 
• Lots to learn about inequalities and difference by talking to passionate people in other countries
• Read Benjamin Black's book ‘Belly Woman’ 
• Thank you for our our Mama Academy Awards!
• You can do something quite small - and it can amplify and become huge
• To embrace innovation and collaboration, funding models must be more innovative
• Rudolf was elf-taught! 

Thank you for listening throughout 2022 - see you next year! 

Here’s to a fun (and, in the best possible way, disruptive) 2023.

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Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

Chapters

• 1:02 Expect the unexpected – Christmas sound effects!
• 1:57 It’s good to take time to reflect
• 2:20 January: celebrating the skills of Anna Geyer, our amazing, graphic artist
• 3:12 We shone a lemon lightbulb on coproduction with NHS England – or was that the poetry event? The one in the tent.
• 4:47 The Trevor test. Accessing, with a single click, is best.
• 5:39 The #FICare ripples begin in January! And will be a key theme for 2023
• 7:22 Flo and Gill reminisce about their zesty adventures at the Fête du Citron in Menton, France
• 9:48 #IntentionalCoffee - and using a bit of creativity to build extraordinary networks
• 11:30 Money, money, money - it must be March! And shoe-horning ideas into funding bids
• 14:53 The #QExchange Family Integrated Care project directly builds on ‘Nobody’s Patient’
• 15:52 April – and a massive shoutout to Rosie Murphy and the innovative Whose Shoes work she led in Croydon around supporting women from ‘BAME’ communities in maternity
• 18:15 The ripples continue … And Flo talks about other developments and learning around supporting women from Black and ethnic minority communities
• 22:29 Miles Sibley – one to watch – one of the key new contacts in 2022. Uncorking the bottle. Taking the postcode lottery out of evidence.
• 24:56 May: “I regret to inform you that your childhood has expired” - a bit harsh?! 😂
• 25:45 Maternal mental health week – Flo’s podcast with Maria, Mothers for Mothers, and a wonderful garden at Chelsea Flower Show
• 27:26 Leanne Howlett’s fabulous perinatal mental health, outdoor festival
• 28:37 Gill runs a Whose Shoes virtual Whose Shoes session for LSBU … from a car park in Devon
• 29:48 June. Flo went off on a very long walk. Gill got stuck into virtual events – firstly maternity triage
• 32:51 There is a long way to go in supporting paramedics to be confident in responding to maternity and neonatal emergencies
• 34:36 Sunita Sharma, our #FabObs postnatal guru. The power of a blank sheet of paper!
• 36:30 And then the virtual Whose Shoes workshop exploring handover from the community midwife to the health visitor. What a can of worms!
• 38:45 July: a very special month indeed. Gill’s youngest grandson is born … and she is there at the birth. The ultimate #GrannyExp!! 😍
• 40:27 August: Flo becomes a Ted NHS speaker - video being published soon, and it is certainly worth the wait! Gill was honoured to be there in person
• 44:46 Our friend, Yvonne Newbold was a speaker too! With a little bit of singing
• 46:11 September: We were having fun in Oxford, preparing for our maternity workshop, when the Queen died. It was all rather surreal.
• 50:51 The ripples continue from the Oxford event. Florence has linked with the maternity team there to compare notes and share learning
• 51:32 Sorry! (Gill upsets Poppy, Flo’s dog, with musical sound effects that apparently (if you are a dog) sound like a cat 😱)
• 52:02 October: a Whose Shoes event with Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health FT around baby loss, as part of Baby Loss Awareness week
• 55:28 November: our podcasts are creating ripples around the world and connecting us with some extraordinary people. Including Yordanka, a wonderful midwife in Alice Springs
• 56:18 So much to learn about inequalities and difference and different challenges by talking to passionate people in other localities and cultures
• 57:50 The global gathering of kindness began in Melbourne, Australia
• 58:58 Benjamin Black and his new book ‘Belly Woman’ – check out the podcast episode that Flo recorded with this extraordinary obstetrician who worked in Sierra Leone in the Ebola pandemic
• 1:00:28 The podcasts are turning into two ways communications, with people contacting us to build the conversations and make good stuff happen
• 1:01:22 The Family Integrated Care app we are developing is highly collaborative. Finding people who are passionate about each aspect
• 1:02:24 December! Can you hear the Sleigh Bells? 😉
• 1:02:28 Our Mama Academy Awards - how special is that! Thank you! And thank you Pauline Woods for nominating us!
• 1:05:32 A key message. You can do something quite small. But the amplification of it can be huge. And it is happening through #MatExp!
• 1:06:20 Looking ahead to 2023. Full steam ahead for our Family Integrated Care project. Join us!
• 1:07:22 If people are to embrace innovation, they need to be more innovative in funding models and finding ways to encourage true collaboration
• 1:08:22 Crackers! And reminiscing on our #MatExp-adventures over the years
• 1:09:38 It’s a RAP. Happy Christmas everyone, and here’s to a fun (and, in the best possible way, disruptive) New Year 🍋🍋🍋

Transcript

Gill Phillips  00:10
 My name is Gill Phillips and I'm the creator of Whose Shoes, a popular approach to co-production. I was named as an HSJ 100 Wild Card and want to help give a voice to others talking about their ideas and experiences. I'll be chatting with people from all sorts of different perspectives, walking in their shoes. If you are interested in the future of health care, and like to hear what other people think, or perhaps even contribute at some point, Whose Shoes wildcard is for you.
 
 Gill Phillips  00:46
 So have you managed to put the ice in your cocktail shaker?
 
 Florence Wilcock  00:49
 I have. It is ready for this Wild Obs. Part two,
 
 Gill Phillips  00:56
 Part two.
 
 Florence Wilcock  00:57
 Following up on last year, Part one. Do you want a little shake to get us started?
 
 Gill Phillips  01:02
 Yeah, let's have a shake. See how you're going? That sounds really good. I like that. So why did you go and get that Flo?
 
 Florence Wilcock  01:14
 Because you suddenly produced props and I wasn't prepared. So I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of things that were near to hand. Bit sad that in my kitchen, there is a cocktail shaker. Actually, I'm just thinking, that doesn't give a very good impression of me, does it?
 
 Gill Phillips  01:32
 But it's a good sound effect. In fact, it might be the winning sound effect, we'll see. So we're trying to do a bit of a Wild Obs mash up of 2022, to follow up. I think last year, we did one that was kind of like looking back over our story and the story of #MatExp. So we're trying to pick it up. Because Flo, we haven't done anything wild for Advent this year.
 
 Florence Wilcock  01:53
 I know. And that kind of feels a bit sad. But we've got so much to look back on that, actually, it's really nice to go back to those stories and think about all the different things we've done over the years. And it's quite nice we've sort of got a record like that. So hopefully these Wild Obs episodes will also be something that we can kind of reflect back on in future.
 
 Gill Phillips  02:19
 And thinking about it. This is the first year where we've both run a podcast throughout whole year because obviously I didn't get going as quickly as you did. And I realised that my very first podcast of the year was with our mutual friend Anna Geyer, our fantastic visual recorder.
 
Florence Wilcock  02:35
 Ah yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  02:37
 So that started 2022 for me.
 
 Florence Wilcock  02:40
 What a way to start it with those brilliant illustrations and Anna hasn't she just celebrated 20 years of being a graphic artist.
 
 Gill Phillips  02:50
 Yeah, she'll be I think 21 years even now. Yeah.
 
Florence Wilcock  02:54
 Yeah, amazing.
 
 Gill Phillips  02:55
 It is amazing.
 
 Florence Wilcock  02:57
 So what else did we get up to in January? We thought we'd do a kind of sort of sequential review of the months, didn't we? And I say sort of sequential because we never do things in a straightforward way.
 
 Gill Phillips  03:12
 But we did in January, do a 'Shine a Lemon Light Bulb' session on co-production with NHS England. Do you remember that one that was right at the beginning of the year. And we did that together? I was trying to pick out bits we've done together? Because we've done lots of bits and pieces together as we always do.
 
 Florence Wilcock  03:29
 Yes, I do remember and ooh, did we do an event in a tent? Was that this year as well?
 
 Gill Phillips  03:38
 I think that might have been the very end of last year. But it was another one of the same kind of things.
 
 Florence Wilcock  03:43
 Yes. Because I can't remember - one of them we did poetry. Was that Shine a Light or was that the event in the tent?
 
 Gill Phillips  03:49
 I think the event in a tent was a poetry event!
 
 Florence Wilcock  03:53
 Was a poetry event. I'm so sorry. I'm going totally to pieces already. So yes, Shine a Light. We were trying to explain to people what co-production is and I think ... actually that cropped up in a meeting I was at today. Because we were back to the whole thing of people coming up with ideas and then taking them to people using the service and saying what do you think? And I had to go "hang on a minute, that's people not understanding what co-production is". That you go out to everybody for the ideas in the first place. Because often what you think you need to work on will be totally different from what the people using your service might think you need to work on. So yes, co-production - still a long way to go.
 
 Gill Phillips  04:47
 And I know I got in a bit of trouble because I think one of my key things is that if you're going to do something, you may as well share it widely and I ended up putting the session on YouTube because I just wanted to be able to share it with one click, one link.
 
 Florence Wilcock  05:01
 That's so unlike you, Gill, to break the rules and just go round something. Why ever did you do that?
 
 Gill Phillips  05:09
 So that my neighbour, Trevor, and I hope, Trevor, you don't mind me giving you a mention. Trevor, who says to me sometimes, "what have you been up to Gill?" And I tell him, and he says "oh, that sounds interesting. Perhaps I could ... is that available for me to listen to?" And I say "yes, here it is" and I give him a link. But if I say you have to sign up via a difficult sign-up process, then less likely for people ...
 
 Florence Wilcock  05:35
 It's never gonna happen.
 
 Gill Phillips  05:36
 No, never gonna happen.
 
 Florence Wilcock  05:38
 No.
 
 Gill Phillips  05:39
 Oh, also in terms of what's relevant since my podcast with Nadia Leake and Rachel Collum around Family Integrated Care and getting the lived experience voice. Now in terms of what's happened later in the year, Family Integrated Care, that we can go on and mention as we go, that's become an incredibly important resource, I think, in terms of people understanding the parents' perspective,
 
 Florence Wilcock  06:04
 That was such a good podcast, I really enjoyed that one. And it was like one of those lemon light bulbs for me when I suddenly realised I was listening to them talking about pressing the buzzer to get in through the door to the neonatal unit, because you have to have security because obviously, you don't want someone just wandering off with a baby. And the idea that you would be locked out from your own child, I had never thought about before. And the idea that this could be solved easily with just a fingerprint recognition thing. And I'm sorry to say I still haven't managed to get that organised at my trust. But it's still rumbling around in my head. So you never know, could be a slow burn. But it just really had never occurred to me that that would be how it would feel, that you were locked out from your own baby.
 
 Gill Phillips  07:05
 And I think that's just the kind of scenario that we're trying to pick up on through the new family integrated care project. So watch this space, perhaps be part of that, you know. Almost certainly, I think that needs to be one of the scenarios,.We'll see.
 
 Florence Wilcock  07:19
 Yeah, fantastic.
 
 Gill Phillips  07:22
 So February ...
 
 Florence Wilcock  07:23
 February. Well, February always makes me think of Shrove Tuesday, because we've had a thing about lemons for some time. And we did in fact do a whole massive ... Jingle Bells now.
 
 Gill Phillips  07:41
 We'll see. But lemons needed a sound effect.
 
 Florence Wilcock  07:45
 Yeah, lemons, definitely do. So. We did a whole massive presentation one year on Shrove Tuesday actually, overlooking parliament. But that's another story. But what I wanted to talk about for February, because we've never had a proper chance to talk to people about it, was our adventures at the Fête du Citron in Menton, in the south of France, which is a whole crazy Lemon Festival. And I'm really pleased looking at the website, that they only missed one Lemon Festival due to COVID. In 2021, it didn't happen. Very sad. But it did happen in 2020, because it nipped in just before lockdown. And then it did also happen in 2022. And is due to happen in 2023. So it's not too late to get your tickets, and go off and see unbelievable floats and crazy things made out of lemons! And if you don't believe me, Google it because it's incredible. And Gill and I had the trip of our lives a couple of years ago, going to the Lemon Festival.
 
 Gill Phillips  09:01
 It was absolutely extraordinary, wasn't it. We'd already got quite a big thing about lemons. And then to find out that there is a very well established Lemon Festival and I think what fascinates me is what it must have been like 88 years ago because it wouldn't be like it is now!
 
 Florence Wilcock  09:18
 No
 
 Gill Phillips  09:19
 And I suppose how these things grow and Disney theme and different themes for each year. What's the theme next year Flo? Do you know?
 
 Florence Wilcock  09:28
 It's, I did just look it up. It's rock and opera.
 
 Gill Phillips  09:33
 Ah I'd so love to go again.
 
 Florence Wilcock  09:35
 That sounds quite, quite wacky.
 
 Florence Wilcock  09:37
 It does, yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  09:39
 I think we might have to do another trip.
 
 Gill Phillips  09:41
 So a big highlight of February.
 
 Florence Wilcock  09:43
 Yes. So February is fun is lemons. Say no more really.
 
 Gill Phillips  09:48
 In February, actually, I thought or something that I did, which I think was February and it was my first intentional coffee podcast where I brought together two people and they happened to be maternity leaders, maternity movers and shakers. So Gaynor Armstrong, my local Director of Midwifery in Coventry, and Sarah-Jane Pedler, who's done such amazing MatExp Whose Shoes work down in Cornwall, and you just get the idea that you just think two people need to meet. So to bring them together on the podcast, when they've never spoken to each other before, was a little bit of a first.
 
 Florence Wilcock  10:23
 Yeah, I think that's a great idea, actually. Because also just bringing people together anyway, you're the most amazing networker I know, connecting the dots up and down the country and also across the world, let's face it. But actually to do that, and then capture the conversation is amazing.
 
 Gill Phillips  10:44
 And they're going to meet up in real life.
 
 Florence Wilcock  10:47
 Yeah, yeah. And I know, we haven't got there yet. But that almost reminds me of the meeting we had last week where you brought random people together for a stakeholder meeting for your current Family Integrated Care project. And it was just like, oh my god, I'm finally in the same virtual room as all these amazing people you've told me about. And it was really exciting. So that was like an intentional coffee as well.
 
 Gill Phillips  11:12
  it was.
 
 Florence Wilcock  11:12
 But on a bigger scale.
 
 Gill Phillips  11:14
 And that's probably the thing that makes me really buzz, you know, just seeing my mates but they're more than mates. You know, they're real movers and shakers, and across different services coming together, and then seeing them connect with each other. It's very, very exciting. But March, Flo, what happened in March,
 
 Florence Wilcock  11:30
 So March, so I, it's funny, in preparation, I'd written down money, because I did a podcast in March about in inverted commas, 'end of year' money, which is this crazy thing in the NHS, where you suddenly, having had no money all year, have to spend all your money very quickly before the end of March, because then it all gets chopped away, and you start again. So I thought about that for March. And then you just told me that that was when you had to put in the bid for the project you're currently doing, which just made me laugh, because I mean, it's just end of year money all over? Oh, my goodness, it's March. Quick. Let's get some people to bid instantaneously, with a really, really short deadline. So you tell us about your bid in March.
 
 Gill Phillips  12:26
 Well, okay. So I don't know if that's true, actually, with the short deadline and so on, the story really was a little bit different in terms of the Q Community have regular calls for bids around different topics. So I think the other thing that's interesting is how much, you know, you get a topic, and then you have to come up with a bid that matches that topic, which sometimes you're shoehorning something that you, you know, it was a great idea, but to make it match the criteria for X call for funding, I think, perhaps would be another topic to explore some time.
 
 Gill Phillips  13:02
 But what I loved was, I'd already got the ideas ... somebody else actually suggested to me, perhaps, you know, perhaps we could use Whose Shoes in this kind of project. And I'd got quite fired up about that. And that didn't actually come to anything. And I find it quite hard actually, to let go of something once you've got hold of it as an idea. And literally, it was on the Monday night that I thought, well, there's an amazing community around family integrated care. And if I WhatsApp this group of people, there are about seven people, then I could see who might be available the next morning to put together a quick bid with me, before the deadline of 12 o'clock the next day, midday. And it was the most amazing kind of evening. Everybody said ah yeah, I'd love to be part of this but you know, obviously, inevitably, I've got a meeting in the morning. We got some amazing people. But Katie Cullum, who's a clinical educator in the East of England, said yeah, I'm around in the morning, Gill, and we worked together online. And that's just such an incredible opportunity these days, isn't it? Well, I could see what ... Katie's good at sharing the screen and I could see what she was typing. And we were coming up with ideas together. And you know, the doorbell would go and all the usual things, but we thought we'd better get something in. And it turned out with this project that you didn't have to get an absolutely final bid in. But it was like a mark in the sand and if you missed the 12 o'clock deadline, you've missed the boat. So we got something in and that was the beginning of the story. And then fast forward to about November, to get through the kind of bureaucracy and actually put it in place, we're now absolutely all systems go with that. And that fairly random WhatsApp group are now a kind of core project team if you like, all of them.
 
 Florence Wilcock  13:02
 Yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  14:53
 I love that story. And it's really, it's really resonating because, for me, the family integrated care directly builds on Nobody's Patient.
 
 Gill Phillips  15:07
 Directly.
 
 Florence Wilcock  15:07
 And Nobody's Patient is almost exactly the same thing. I had a crazy idea in the middle of the night. And then I rang you and I think I rang Leigh, Leigh Kendall that is, and we kind of pulled it all together incredibly quickly. Again, just from a random idea.
 
 Gill Phillips  15:32
 And such a good idea and Flo, that has led directly to this because obviously, we're saying we're building on Nobody's Patient.
 
 Florence Wilcock  15:39
 Yeah. So lovely to see it go to the next iteration, as it were. So very exciting.
 
 Gill Phillips  15:46
 So, money!
 
 Florence Wilcock  15:48
 Money! March is money.
 
 Gill Phillips  15:51
 April was exciting!
 
 Florence Wilcock  15:52
 April. Mmm. So I, sadly, didn't manage to do this but you did. A very exciting event with Rosie.
 
 Gill Phillips  16:04
 But you were a huge part in sowing the seeds. It's all about sowing the seeds, isn't it? So Rosie Murphy, I want to give a big shout out to. Rosie is an amazing midwife who was on the ... (and ... tambourine now - I hadn't shown you that one). Rosie is an amazing midwife who I'd met through the Darzi fellowship programme. A shout out for Professor Becky Malby and Tom Holliday who run the Darzi fellowship programme who ... I meet the most extraordinary and amazing people through and Rosie is right up there at the top. And she was doing her Darzi challenge around health inequalities, and working with women and families from black and ethnic minority communities and improving things in maternity care. And it just grew from getting involved with Rosie as soon as she started her Darzi fellowship, just like reaching out to her, offering to help, promising to introduce her to my good, good friend FabObs Flo, you getting involved right from the start and spending considerable time with her really trying to help and share our passion and knowledge and experience and so on. And it went from being something that we were just informally helping her with, because we care and because she was so lovely, to suddenly she came up with a bit of money to do it a bit more formally. And her placement was at Croydon hospital who are already Whose Shoes customers, and they'd already got the board games. All these things that actually in a short space of time make things more do-able. And she ended up with this extraordinary workshop in a local community centre. And it's brilliant, something like the Wellness Centre in Croydon, which is so much better for people to go to than to go to the maternity unit at the hospital. And it had that feel and Rosie was so good at building local relationships and getting the trust of people and all the things that we talk about on our Shine the Light on co-productions type obsessions.
 
 Florence Wilcock  18:15
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  18:15
 And she's now got a job as health inequalities lead. And we're still very much in touch. And some of the ripples that are coming from that workshop are very much, you know, people in touch and wanting to build on it. And I made a little film from the workshop. And sometimes it's just finding those little ways to keep the energy going and share the stories.
 
 Florence Wilcock  18:39
 Completely. Yeah. So Rosie has done amazing work. And, like you say, ripples from that, but also some other really important events this year in terms of looking at women's experience in maternity care from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds. So I remember when I was in London, doing the work for the London Maternity Clinical Network, and I asked for the normal CQC maternity survey data to be analysed by ethnicity to tell me what was the experience of women from non-Caucasian backgrounds. They told me there was insufficient data that they couldn't do that and I couldn't understand that because London is such a multicultural society and has such a diverse population. It didn't make sense to me at all. So it was really brilliant this year that Five Times More published a specific black maternity experience survey looking at more than 1,000 women, their experience as black women of maternity care in the UK and a lot of the answers were actually from London, interestingly, but some of the experiences and some of the things they described, were really eye opening. And hopefully, that's kind of set a landmark now, as a regular thing that we will be able to hear the voices of those women, and they will feel they can contribute. And we're enabling them to have their voices heard, and hopefully then act and improve things because of that. And kind of following on from that. I also had some involvement in a report called Invisible, about Muslim women's experiences of maternity care, which was led by Shai Gohir here, who's the Chair of the RCOG Women's Network, in fact, sorry, I should say, Baroness Gohir, because she's just been appointed to the Lord's, congratulations to her. But her work, again, more than 1,000, I think it was about 1,500, women talking about their experiences as Muslim women within maternity services, and some really shocking examples of discrimination, not just ... not even micro aggressions, but actually just racist. I mean, lots of really appalling behaviour that you look at and you think, can this be true in this day and age that people are openly behaving this badly to people that they're supposed to be providing care for? I mean ...
 
 Gill Phillips  21:42
 Just shocking. Yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  21:43
 Really shocking. So it's been fantastic. And I'm really hoping that that work, I know, there's a new Darzi fellow, isn't there?
 
Gill Phillips  21:54
 Yes, Ella.
 
 Florence Wilcock  21:55
 ... picking up on Rosie's work and I'm really hoping that the two of us can continue to support that and help amplify those voices and experiences and keep those conversations going. Because I think 2022 has been a really good year in terms of getting those voices heard, or starting to.
 
 Gill Phillips  22:17
 Starting to. And I think it's extraordinary work isn't it and I think one of the things that shocks me is how much of this work has to come from the women themselves before anybody's really listening?
 
Florence Wilcock  22:28
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  22:29
 And, again, in terms of links and connections - so we haven't yet mentioned Miles Sibley. So he's one of, I'd say, my top connections from 2022. I think he's extraordinary. So Miles, I did do a podcast with and he's the founder of Patient Experience Library. And he does extraordinary work around evidence. And I'm, we're like mutually supporting each other now with Q Community projects that we've got. So ours is the family integrated care project. And Miles' is looking specifically at mapping evidence around the UK. And I think if it can be linked in some way, specifically with health inequalities, and the kind of issues that you're mentioning, Flo, where research is very rich in some areas, and perhaps it doesn't need funding for yet another project to look at the same thing. It needs people perhaps more to use what's out there already. But to find these areas that people just aren't being supported. To research and develop and use the data. I think that'd be extraordinary.
 
 Florence Wilcock  23:32
 Yeah, and his report Inadmissible Evidence about the way people's experience, lived experience, evidence is discounted. And in comparison to, in inverted commas, 'scientific evidence', you know, research or being proper, and actually lived experience being 'well, that's just experience - so what'. So I'm going to give Miles and his Inadmissible Evidence and his project, I'm going to give him this sound effect.
 
 Gill Phillips  24:10
 Wait for it.
 
 Florence Wilcock  24:14
 Because he's uncorking the bottle, and everything is going to pour out. Because actually, I mean, that's what a lot of this stuff is, isn't it? It's, it's actually if you're in power, and you've got the cork nicely in the bottle, and you can keep it there and you can keep it under control. But if we uncork and unleash the voices, who knows what could happen,
 
 Gill Phillips  24:45
 I love that sound effect, even if that's the only one that makes it into the final cut - uncorking something so important.
 
 Florence Wilcock  24:55
 That's what I think
 
 Gill Phillips  24:56
 Which brings us to May does it?
 
 Florence Wilcock  24:58
 Which brings us to May.
 
 Gill Phillips  25:00
 Now of course, May, May is my birthday. And I don't know if you remember, but you sent me a card. And I was quite taken aback by this. It says "I regret to inform you, but your childhood has expired!". We'll see about that when we get to the Christmas podcast and I bring all my instruments.
 
 Florence Wilcock  25:23
 Yes. I don't know why that, that card made me think of you. I just, it just, just seemed like I thought you'd find it funny.
 
 Gill Phillips  25:32
 I did find it very funny. Thank you.
 
 Florence Wilcock  25:36
 So yeah, maybe, maybe it hasn't. Maybe your childhood is ever, ever continuing. So in May interestingly, when we were swapping notes before we started recording, May was quite important for maternal mental health. And actually, I think, if I'm correct, that May contains Maternal Mental Health Week.
 
 Gill Phillips  25:59
 Yes, it does.
 
 Florence Wilcock  26:00
 And I recorded a podcast episode with Maria, who works for Mothers for Mother's, a maternal mental health charity in Bristol. And I also went to see her at the Chelsea Flower Show because Mothers for Mother's had a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. And in fact, won I believe the People's Choice Award for their garden. Their garden was amazing. It had a bench in it, which was the shape of a pregnant woman's belly. So it was kind of laying on its side. And it had a path with a crack in it on purpose. And the crack was converging, showing the crack and the difficulties with maternal mental health, and then gradually, gradually coming together and the crack closing to symbolise that healing process and the healing process, not only of the work the charity does and therapy and support, but also the healing processes of being outside, being in nature. And it was absolutely incredible. I loved the garden. And you did something also outside, didn't you for maternal mental health week in May, Gill.
 
 Gill Phillips  27:35
 Well, I was part of it. So Leanne Howlett, who you know and she's amazing, young woman who had serious perinatal mental health problems herself and has just become such a campaigner, and is now actually training as a mental health nurse. So you know, complete change of career she's the most extraordinary woman. And she ran a perinatal mental health outdoor festival walk in a local park to us and I think it might be the third one that she's done. She also did, during the pandemic, a virtual one. She just, she doesn't take no for an answer, Leanne, and she gets local people, local stalls. This was a real fun event with things for the kids and dancing. And I think particularly after the pandemic, it was just such a, it was a beautiful sunny day. And we walked around this local nature reserve together and you know, going at the speed of families, nobody was competing or doing anything like that. And the fact that you came out with an outdoor theme, and also I realised that I actually ran, and it wasn't maternity related, but I ran my first outdoor virtual Whose Shoes session from a car park, on the way back from Devon, for Becky Malby, who had asked me to get involved in, she said was I available? She was working with one of the big London hospitals, very serious project around waiting times for children and young people's services. And could we do something a bit Whose Shoes and I said, well, I'm away on holiday, but realised that I'd got some really quite good scenarios already. And with technical support from Mr. Whose Shoes who managed to set us up in the car with two iPads and a phone to run this session. And for my daughter and granddaughter, who were with us, who managed to find a place with really good internet connectivity and then a park that they could go off and play in while we did this session, so there's our outdoor theme for ... random outdoor theme.
 
 Florence Wilcock  29:37
 That's just amazing, how versatile you are as well. My goodness.
 
 Gill Phillips  29:42
 You could call it that.
 
 Florence Wilcock  29:44
 Running a session from the car. That brings us to June
 
Gill Phillips  29:49
 Happy Birthday!
 
 Florence Wilcock  29:50
  and yeah, and that's my birthday ... lovely ... and I went off on a very long walk.
 
 Gill Phillips  30:02
 You did! Couldn't contact you.
 
 Florence Wilcock  30:07
 Yes, so I abandoned Gill and went off and did a long distance walk in Yorkshire, which was fantastic. And left you to manage all sorts of exciting things.
 
 Gill Phillips  30:23
 And some really serious things were happening.
 
 Florence Wilcock  30:26
 Tell us more.
 
 Gill Phillips  30:27
 So well, there were two big virtual Whose Shoes events during June and when I say big, the first one absolutely blew my mind, really. You know how I try and really research a topic and get into it. And it was triage in maternity services. And sometimes I think my confusion, either genuine or perhaps just asking questions but in this case, I promise you it was really genuine. I was so confused. Like, even what is triage in maternity services? And so I try and explore it to understand more for myself. And I got myself involved in some really quite big stuff. So I attended a three hour webinar run by people who've set up, I don't know if you call it BSOTS, it was B S O T S, and it was an actual BSOTS system that sits behind trying to join this stuff up but seemed to be in more of a really, really good but systems and processes and environment kind of way. Whereas obviously, my key focus really is well how does this land for people and women and families in the case for maternity? So I was picking up things like maternity triage ... to some people, if you said to people like what is maternity triage, it might be well it's the equivalent of 999 in maternity services. Whereas perhaps for other people, it was well, you know, if you have a bit of a problem during pregnancy, that's where you go. And then for other people, it was well, and you get to the women and families point of view, well I've been told if I have a problem during pregnancy, then my obstetrician says just contact them. Whereas I've been given a leaflet. But the numbers on the back of the leaflet are out of date. And my friend doesn't speak English. So she phones 999. There's always someone there to answer the phone. And there's always an interpreter. And honestly, the more I dug into it, the more fascinating it got.
 
 Gill Phillips  32:29
 Yeah,
 
 Gill Phillips  32:29
 But to try and reduce that into the number of scenarios and poems that you can sensibly include in an online session and to get people thinking about the different issues and really make something happen. So it was the most extraordinary session. And it was initiated, if you like, by Amanda Mansfield. Now obviously Flo, you know, Amanda?
 
 Florence Wilcock  32:51
 Yes, yes, Amanda. That's how I ended up on the back of an ambulance. Because she used to be the consultant midwife at London Ambulance. And we did a workshop together on pre-hospital maternity care with the ambulance service. And being me, I thought, well I need to go out on the ambulance, don't I, to understand what it's like being on an ambulance.
 
 Gill Phillips  33:17
 And you do, you do.
 
 Florence Wilcock  33:19
 And it, and it was really eye-opening because I could understand why they were terrified of maternity cases, because most of what they deal with is frail, elderly. And so it's way outside their comfort zone. So it was very interesting. So yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  33:33
 And in terms of, I don't want it to be too confusing to people, but how ideas kind of bounce off each other and so on. And it was Dawn, your friend Dawn Kerslake, who's now working with South East ambulance services as a consultant midwife?
 
 Florence Wilcock  33:49
 Yes, that's correct.
 
 Gill Phillips  33:51
 When I was updating her about our family integrated care project, Dawn was telling me about paramedics perhaps being expected to join a training session in a maternity or neonatal unit to learn about birth and what they needed to know as paramedics, but actually, their situation might be so different on an ambulance or by the side of the road, and to make sure that it's actually relevant to them and how they need their own training.
 
 Florence Wilcock  34:18
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  34:18
 And to be confident because, hang on a minute, I'm expected to do this out and about in the real world, rather than the perfect sort of hygiene and equipment and so on of a maternity unit, if that makes sense.
 
 Florence Wilcock  34:30
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  34:31
 So I was blown away by that.
 
 Florence Wilcock  34:33
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  34:34
 Incredible people working in this area.
 
 Florence Wilcock  34:36
 Yeah, totally. And funnily enough, the London Ambulance work directly links to the other thing you did in June because one of the people that came to our London Ambulance workshop, that I led, was the marvellous Sunita.
 
 Florence Wilcock  34:57
 Ah yes, Sunita.
 
 Florence Wilcock  34:59
 She came and you, in June, ran an event with Sunita, did you not?
 
 Gill Phillips  35:06
 I did. So Sunita Sharma is our postnatal guru, isn't she? She's an obstetrician at Chelsea and Westminster hospital. And she just everything that she does is about the well being of women and families and not letting it stop at the end of maternity, which I think must be quite an unusual role for an obstetrician.
 
 Florence Wilcock  35:25
 Very unusual. And I interviewed her on my podcast in September, and I loved what she said about why she did it. She said, she did it because she could have a blank piece of paper. If she took postnatal, no one was interested in it. She could start with a blank sheet and make it up and do whatever she wanted. She'd have freedom and creativity to really make change. And I absolutely loved that. And it made me kind of reminisce a bit as to why I started. I was always interested in women's experience and maternity care. But when I kind of really tried to champion it was because I thought no one's doing this. I want to do this. No one's doing it. And why not? And we should be. And yeah, so she's incredibly unusual in championing postnatal care, and unbelievably inspirational in what she's achieved.
 
 Gill Phillips  36:30
 She really is. She's quiet and gritty. And it's very difficult to say no, I think I did actually start, for some reason, in trying to say no because, you know, just whatever. And no, no, no, we needed to do this. And we did do it!
 
 Gill Phillips  36:42
 Very unlike you Gill, you don't say, no!
 
 Gill Phillips  36:45
 Well, this is my problem really, isn't it? But people like Sunita, obviously like yourself, like Rosie, I don't want to be saying no, because it will always lead to something worthwhile. And that's the benchmark really. So what did we do in June? We did a virtual Whose Shoes session around, specifically within postnatal care, the handover from a community midwife to a health visitor, and how that might feel. So just exploring that in depth, and you come across systems and information transfer, and rules. So if the community midwife goes up to day 10, and then the health visitor takes over, but actually the community midwife is still involved. So the poor woman on day 10 ends up with the familiar community midwife working with her. And then at worst, a random health visitor who perhaps doesn't even know that her baby was in neonatal care. Hasn't had the chance to get the right information and so on, setting the relationship up to a disastrous start for both sides.
 
 Gill Phillips  37:52
 Yes, yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  37:53
 So trying to explore some of that which immediately is spilling over now into our family integrated care project as one of the very first scenarios that we're going to try and explore with our new audio Whose Shoes mini experience app which is a whole 'nother story. And Sunita can be part of that. And Rosie Barrow equally. Rosie worked with Sunita and she's, she's just so lovely and amazing. But some of these like can of worms, topics that the system might see as 'on day 10 you transfer from this person to that person' and to dig behind it in terms of what that really means. That's Whose Shoes really.
 
 Florence Wilcock  38:35
 Needs the bottle again,
 
 Florence Wilcock  38:36
 You got your pop!
 
 Florence Wilcock  38:40
 Another unleashing. So Gill,, July, something a little bit special happened in July. Would you like to tell us?
 
 Gill Phillips  38:53
 It certainly did and I started to probably publicly fade into the background a little bit because something very special was happening in my own life and MatExp became GrannyExp. So granny experience, not my first experience. I'm very, very blessed to have four lovely grandchildren. But this was the birth of my new grandson. I was there at the birth and it wasn't really expected that I will be because looking after my granddaughter was always going to be the top priority but the way it worked out, sunny day and Mr. Whose Shoes coming to the party with paints and aprons (and that was just him!) I was able to be there at my little grandson's birth and it was the most, it was possibly the most special experience of my life.
 
 Florence Wilcock  39:43
 Wow!
 
 Gill Phillips  39:44
 It was amazing. Just so lovely.
 
 Florence Wilcock  39:46
 It was amazing. Yeah. Very exciting news. Congratulations!
 
 Gill Phillips  39:52
 Thank you and remembering. you know, it brings back to you that kind of just craziness of newborn and the newborn sort of phase and haze, isn't it, of everything just blending and a heatwave. We were hitting the 40 degree heat wave very, very frightening, really, in terms of, you know, how to keep a newborn baby safe either in hospital or at home, you know. when you're is recommended, is it between 16 and 20 degrees? And it was 40 outside!
 
Florence Wilcock  40:22
 Yes, yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  40:24
 So, yeah, July was very, very special,
 
 Florence Wilcock  40:27
 Excellent. And August was kind of special for me,
 
 Gill Phillips  40:33
 Hang on, it was more than special, this is a ...
 
 Florence Wilcock  40:41
 I had, for better or worse, decided to throw my hat into the ring, to do a TEDx NHS talk. And it was a very interesting experience. Like nothing I've ever experienced before. Very collaborative writing process. Then learning effectively how to perform your talk, it was not like any kind of presentation I've given before. No props, no slides, just you on a scary stage. And I really wanted to do it, I really wanted to say my piece about what I felt about maternity care. It was important to me to capture my voice as an obstetrician, but also the voice of women, you know, a bit like with the Whose Shoes work, I wanted to bring more than one perspective into my talk. And that pretty much took over August for me. The live event was held in this incredible old music hall, Wiltons Music Hall in East London. And on the day, I absolutely loved it. I was really frightened. But it felt like a very safe space, we had a fantastic compare. And she really kind of put me at ease with her introduction, when I was waiting in the wings, and I went out and I said my piece. And I loved it. I came off that stage feeling on top of the world. And I would love to say that you could all watch it, but you can't! Back to our Shine a Light circumventing things to get videos. There is a video coming. I think it will be worth the wait.
 
 Gill Phillips  42:49
 It definitely will.
 
 Florence Wilcock  42:51
 But it's still a little bit watch this space.
 
 Gill Phillips  42:54
 Yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  42:55
 And it's probably going to be 2023 I think. But it is on its way.
 
 Gill Phillips  43:02
 Fantastic.
 
 Florence Wilcock  43:03
 And I'd love you to listen and let me know what you think. Because I loved it. I really felt like I'd achieved what I wanted to do when I thought 'Yeah, I want to do this'. I want to say something that hopefully whips things up a bit, gets people thinking, gets people improving maternity care.
 
 Gill Phillips  43:27
 And they're such an incredible format, aren't they? And it's a privilege, you know, to do a TED talk. And I was amazingly privileged to be able to come along and watch live. So I have seen it.
 
 Florence Wilcock  43:37
 Yeah, yeah. And it was an amazing event because there were 10 of us. And they were all fantastic.
 
 Florence Wilcock  43:45
 Five of them are up on YouTube, five of them are waiting. And it was a real privilege to be speaking alongside some of the other speakers and one of which was our mutual friend, Yvonne, who is incredible. And I hope she won't mind me giving it away that there was a little bit of singing involved in her talk. And she was fabulous. And I can't wait till her video comes out too. So it was, it was the whole experience of being with 10 very inspired, disruptive as it were, people who want to speak their mind and improve things.
 
 Gill Phillips  43:45
 They were.
 
 Gill Phillips  44:33
 And coming along to watch it was an amazing experience too because I could feel that bond between you as speakers and how everybody was willing everybody to do their absolute best. And it was extra special to me because Yvonne had invited me because I had nominated her because I just knew that she would never have time to get round to doing it herself. And then she and you were both in this amazing thing and I was there to watch you. And you've mentioned Yvonne and her singing. And that was unexpected. She actually got a live response from the audience
 
 Gill Phillips  45:09
 and everybody kind of joined in and clapped at the time ... you can't engineer that stuff, but Flo you have skipped over, and you hadn't told me, and it was great, really, that you hadn't told me, how you were going to start your talk now? Are we allowed to mention that OR, or NOT YET?
 
 Gill Phillips  45:09
 She did.
 
 Florence Wilcock  45:25
 I don't know, I think we should leave it as a surprise.
 
 Gill Phillips  45:30
 Okay. Do you remember how you started it?
 
 Florence Wilcock  45:34
 I do know how I started it. Well, let's just say, um, some of the people that know me, from the maternity world
 
 Gill Phillips  45:46
 might guess,
 
 Florence Wilcock  45:47
 said afterwards, we should have known that would be how you would start it, Florence. So I think, yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I want to give it away.
 
 Gill Phillips  46:01
 No, no. So we'll leave that as a ripple.
 
 Florence Wilcock  46:03
 Because then people will have to watch it to find out.
 
Gill Phillips  46:05
 Yeah, we'll leave that as a prolonged ripple.
 
Florence Wilcock  46:06
 There's gonna be a ripple.
 
 Gill Phillips  46:08
 Okay.
 
 Florence Wilcock  46:09
 So that was August. September ...
 
 Gill Phillips  46:13
 We were looking forward to September, weren't we.
 
 Florence Wilcock  46:15
 We were looking forward to September, because we were going to do our first in the room. workshop together since before the pandemic, and this was a workshop that had been a very, very long time coming. We'd had numerous dates for this workshop. And this workshop was a bit special to me, because it was in Oxford, and I trained in Oxford. And I'd always said to you, if there's ever a workshop in Oxford, I'm going to come and do that, because I wanted to give something back to the place that inspired me to get involved in obstetrics and gynaecology, in the first place. So we went to Oxford.
 
 Gill Phillips  47:02
 And with all the rearrange dates, it had been a priority to get, you know, something that you could manage and to be be part of, because it's been going on for a very long time.
 
 Florence Wilcock  47:12
 Yeah, it totally was. And after a  very trying, journey, we met up in Oxford, and we ...
 
 Gill Phillips  47:23
 We were having fun.
 
 Florence Wilcock  47:24
 went for a walk, we were having a lovely time. We went for a walk, it was really beautiful. And we were having a really good catch up. And then we realised there were all these people kind of standing around in little groups, and there was a bell ringing. And the flags were at half mast, and we realised something really quite serious was wrong. And we discovered that the Queen had died.
 
 Gill Phillips  48:00
 Which just felt surreal, didn't it? When we were having such a nice time.
 
 Florence Wilcock  48:04
 It felt really weird. We were having a lovely time. And we were about to run an event with a lot of people. And we were a bit uncertain would that go ahead. But it also felt quite special to be together at that moment.
 
Gill Phillips  48:21
 It did.
 
 Florence Wilcock  48:22
 And we were thinking about the fact that she is the queen of our, our lifetime. You know. And despite your not-expired childhood, neither of us are that young. Because she'd been the queen for such a long time that neither of us had known anything else. Like many, many people in the country. And so it felt very profound. But we did go on and run our event the next day.
 
 Gill Phillips  48:53
 We did and I remember looking around that workshop and thinking nobody in that workshop was alive without having the queen, you know, from when they were born and before. It was an extraordinary feeling wasn't it.
 
 Florence Wilcock  49:05
 And I think the other thing is that, although it was very sad, we did go and get a glass of Prosecco. And toast the Queen because we actually felt we should celebrate an incredible life and incredible achievement. And also with a little bit of a nod to your lovely Mum.
 
 Gill Phillips  49:31
 Absolutely. Yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  49:32
 Your late mum, who was of the same generation. So we did have a little drink and a toast to the Queen and your Mum.
 
 Gill Phillips  49:41
 And it felt nice to be, you know, it's like these big events you do remember where you are and who you're with. So it feels very special now, but at the time we were both just, you know, you don't know how to react, do you? So we did the event in Oxford. The Oxford team were great. I think I had one of the best comments ever. Just a chance comment at the end when someone said it feels like a new start.
 
 Florence Wilcock  50:03
 It feels like a new start. Yeah.
 
 Gill Phillips  50:07
 And in terms of maternity, and just how difficult things are at the moment, and obviously, it's different for you, Flo, it's what you live and breathe and do every day as a clinician, but for me, the fact that people are making time to do a Whose Shoes workshop, you want it to make a difference. And it ... they just felt to bring me the staff and the women together and to have those deep conversations and to start to explore some of the difficulty was just really special. And Anna, our wonderful graphic artist put a little ... we were wondering what kind of slightly subliminal record we could have, and she put a royal Corgi on the banner, do you remember?
 
 Florence Wilcock  50:51
 Yeah, yeah. And it was really special that event. And actually, I've made some connections from that event. I had a meeting with one of the obstetricians that came to that event.
 
 Gill Phillips  51:04
 Oh, fantastic. I bet I can think who, she was lovely.
 
 Florence Wilcock  51:07
 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And her consultant midwife, we had a meeting on Teams on Monday so that we can exchange ideas, her team and my team, so
 
 Gill Phillips  51:20
 And it just shows that's a few months afterwards, isn't it? You know, three months on and yeah,
 
 Florence Wilcock  51:26
 You know, those ripples again.
 
 Gill Phillips  51:30
 So ripples,
 
 Florence Wilcock  51:32
 So I think the dog thought that was a cat, because she's just run off into the kitchen to look for it. It's really funny. Now she's barking. Poppy, it's alright? It's not a cat.
 
 Gill Phillips  51:50
 It's just this ... causing mayhem.
 
 Florence Wilcock  51:56
 Poor dog, poor dog.
 
 Gill Phillips  51:58
 No more ripples. Okay.
 
 Florence Wilcock  52:00
 No more ripples. Good. Okay, October.
 
 Gill Phillips  52:04
 So October, I think does bring us back together in a way, in that October was quite a special event that had been brewing for us for again, quite a long time. It seemed that various events this year, inevitably, and I meant to mention the wonderful event that we did with Gaynor in Coventry around wellbeing of staff, and women, which was earlier in the year. And it was really innovative in terms of looking back at experiences during the pandemic, and seeing how people could work together to recover and learn together. Well, that and the event in Oxford, and the event that I'm going to talk about in October with Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust, it's really nice when something comes together at the time that it needs to come together, even if it's taken ages to get there, because there's a timeliness, isn't there, in terms of when people can manage it and fit it into their busy schedule and so on. And this was, again, to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness Week in October. So it was an event that we planned for. And I always just feel so privileged when we can use something like Whose Shoes hopefully to help families and to help improvement in that sort of highly sensitive area. And it linked back to the work that we did together before the pandemic, starting to explore that area specifically with Sands UK and the National Bereavement Care Pathway that you championed in Colchester just before the pandemic.
 
 Florence Wilcock  53:38
 Yeah, so that was my last in person event before the pandemic. In fact, it was just in that kind of should we, shouldn't we go ahead. It was March 2020. So it was really on the cusp. And we went ahead with an in room event with Sands about the National Bereavement Care pathway with Colchester and Ipswich hospital, and it was a very emotional, but excellent event. And yes, baby loss and the importance of discussing baby loss, making sure the care is right for bereaved families and that you're not exacerbating the pain they're already feeling. But that you're compassionate and caring and trying to do the right things to support them in that moment of loss, is really crucial. So it's fantastic that that work is kind of, again, building a bit like the family integrated care work. It's kind of building and growing on the existing foundations that we've already got.
 
 Gill Phillips  54:56
 And it's some of these unforeseen ripples, isn't it? It's just who you meet like you've just mentioned the obstetrician at Oxford. Well, at the Birmingham event, I met a wonderful, very experienced bereavement counsellor who came up and just chatted to me. And I'm hoping that she'll be a podcast guest possibly on my podcast quite early in the new year. And it helps build these stories, doesn't it? And a wider audience of people understanding why it's important. The ripples are really strong.
 
 Florence Wilcock  55:28
 Fantastic. That brings us to November. Now, November has been quite exciting in terms of connections, hasn't it?
 
 Gill Phillips  55:38
 It has, yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  55:39
 Because we've discovered we've got some fans or mutual fans or certainly connections, the far side of the world.
 
 Gill Phillips  55:52
 We have and it's really exciting.
 
 Florence Wilcock  55:54
 And we've had an amazing meet up with the wonderful Yordanka in Alice Springs.
 
 Gill Phillips  56:01
 Fabulous.
 
 Florence Wilcock  56:03
 And we're hatching plans.
 
 Gill Phillips  56:04
 And just to hear how things are in a maternity unit on, not just on the other side of the world, but in a very specific location. Alice Springs isn't Melbourne or Sydney, you know, it's ...
 
 Florence Wilcock  56:17
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  56:18
 There's so much more to learn isn't there in terms of inequalities and difference and different challenges that people have and to meet that same passion. Exactly the same passion like MatExp. What can we do about this? Let's jump off piste a bit and just make things happen. I love it.
 
Florence Wilcock  56:36
 Yes. Yeah. Totally. And listening to her talking about Aboriginal women and the cultural differences and the approach and the understanding that you need is absolutely fantastic.
 
 Gill Phillips  56:55
 And this is coming directly from our podcast isn't?
 
 Florence Wilcock  56:59
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  56:59
 I think Yordanka first listened to your maternity specific podcast.
 
 Gill Phillips  57:04
 And you mentioned my slightly wilder Wild Card podcast. And she's listening quite avidly to both of those. And then we were able to share stories back to her like Alice Ladur's project using Whose Shoes working with men in Uganda, obviously a completely different country, but quite a lot of overlap in terms of some of the issues she was facing. And separately to that, I got an approach from someone from a hospital in Darwin. So again, Northern Territory and Australia, talking about similar issues, but in the emergency department. And I thought those two contexts those inquiries, if you'd like that came within a very short space of time, they must be related to each other, but they're not.
 
Florence Wilcock  57:04
 Yes.
 
 Florence Wilcock  57:48
 Yes, yeah.
 
 Gill Phillips  57:50
 And then separate to that, again, through the wonderful kindness conversations that I get involved in regularly every month with Dr. Bob Klaber, a paediatrician in London, and these two people who literally get up in the middle of the night, one from Melbourne, Australia, and one from New Zealand, to join us every single month. So Kath Crock, who is the founder of the Hush foundation in Melbourne, who I had the privilege to talk to on one of my podcasts. And she's Australia as well. And we're sowing seeds together, that group. And, you know, who knows where that might lead? So you've got these global seeds being sown, haven't you? Without any kind of agenda, other than finding people who are wanting the same kind of things in terms of bringing more humanity into health care across the world.
 
 Florence Wilcock  58:42
 Yes, yes. Completely. And, yeah, the desire to improve things and yeah, I think you're right humanity. Which also reminds me, October, I was going to mention Benjamin Black and his book Belly Woman.
 
 Gill Phillips  59:02
 Yes.
 
 Florence Wilcock  59:03
 Benjamin's an obstetrician and gynaecologist who does humanitarian work and wrote a book about his work in maternity and sexual and reproductive health in the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. An extraordinary story and also very fascinating to talk to. So he also had very much that key theme of they made mistakes in the Ebola epidemic in terms of people not being able to visit and see their relatives that were sick and actually, that actually taking that humanity away was really detrimental and how they learnt from that as the epidemic progressed, and they started to be able to you know, they couldn't visit because it wasn't safe, but they could see each other through a fence and there were ways of maintaining contact between family members, and how important that basic humanity is. So I think that's a kind of theme that's run through everything, hasn't it?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:00:11
 Yes, absolutely. And to be able to support people like this, and he was very generous and sent us both separately, didn't he, a preview copy of his book. And to be able to use social media to comment and share and link with other people.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:00:27
 And I think that's the thing that's been new for me this year on my podcast, is people actually contacting me saying, I'm doing this. Could I have a chat with you? Could you use the podcast to help me? I've done a few more conversations. And I had a conversation with Rose, who's running 'Book before 10' campaign to try and get women to book early in pregnancy. And also, Meghan, who's doing research on women running in the postnatal period, all sorts of people are now kind of cropping up and saying, Actually, we're trying to work on improving things. Can you help us and it's really lovely that people feel that the podcast might be of help, and actually give them a little bit of an audience of people that are interested in improving things. So that's been a new thing for me this year. Definitely.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:01:22
 That's interesting. And I think that links again, with our family integrated care project
 
 Gill Phillips  1:01:27
 In terms of we've got these Whose Shoes mini experiences? Well, supposing we can talk about, for example, delivery room cuddles, or parents are parents not visitors, and kangaroo care, and language. And now, what I'm trying to do is to find THE person or THE team that that specific issue runs through like a stick of rock, and perhaps see what they can come up with around that scenario as just a little bit of gold. And if you can collect that passion. So just like with your podcasts, it's out there now. And someone's coming to you not just to approach you to talk about a topic, but about their topic, the thing that they're passionate about, and you talk to them about that. So you're learning they're learning.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:01:27
 Yes.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:02:18
 Yes.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:02:19
 And you've got now the platform to give them to amplify the voices and so on.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:02:23
 Yeah. And that kind of brings us to December. Now, December, well, November, December, something a little bit special happened. In that we got some rather special parcels in the post.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:02:40
 We did, we did and weren't they special.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:02:42
 They were very special. So the wonderful Pauline, from Born Too Soon, which is the neonatal charity at Kingston, decided to put in some nominations for some awards. And we had a little bit of a clean sweep by accident.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:03:06
 We didn't know quite what we were being nominated for.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:03:09
 We didn't know. Yeah. And so I was quite surprised, because I first got a message saying Gill won an award and you were a runner up and I was like, yay, Gill won an award. That's fantastic! And I went off to do my antenatal clinic. And then I got a message from a midwife on my phone going, congratulations! And I went, what, what what are you congratulating me for? And she sent me a photo. Because apparently, I had won the MAMA Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:03:46
 Which is fantastic. And the wording of it was so perfect.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:03:49
 And I'm really chuffed. really chuffed. And it's, it's very nice, and it's on my shelf behind me because it's far too nice to take to work it has to be at home. But apart from the fact it made me feel like oh, good Lord, that lifetime achievement award normally goes to someo ne who's about 90. So I'm feeling a bit old!
 
 Gill Phillips  1:04:10
 I should have had that one.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:04:11
 You know, it's kind of I don't know, David Attenborough type thing, isn't it? So I feel, I feel very, very honoured. extremely honoured, but very, very touched as well. And I felt like if I've in some small way meant to someone that they felt I deserved that then, Wow. Yeah. And likewise, you, Mrs. Maternity Ambassador of the year. I mean, there couldn't be a better ambassador. You're so unbelievable at connecting everybody, introducing people, hosting things. I mean, yeah, it's just perfect for you. So congratulations!
 
 Gill Phillips  1:05:06
 Yeah, thank you. And I was really chuffed at that, because it felt like the sort of award that recognised a community. And to be able to say, in a genuine way, this is on behalf of all the contributors to the MatExp community, without whom, you know, and it sounds like the end of an Oscars, doesn't it? But yeah, it's so true, isn't it that everything we do is so kind of collaborative. And if through our podcast, if through our award, or whatever it might be, somehow more people are being aware of some of these issues, and we're managing to spread awareness or bring more people into this space making a difference. And I think the big thing is, our messages around individuals can make a difference.
 
Florence Wilcock  1:05:50
 Yeah.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:05:51
 And you can do something quite small. But the amplification of that is absolutely huge. And it's happening.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:05:58
 Yeah, completely.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:05:59
 And that's a message in these difficult times, isn't it? It must be so difficult to be in the NHS and some of the challenges at the moment that we need this, perhaps a bit of fun at Christmas. And a bit of encouragement and a bit of a belief that people can make a difference to encourage people hopefully,
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:06:18
 Totally. So 2023, who knows what that might bring. You're carrying on with your family integrated care project?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:06:28
 Yes. It's been frustrating. Because if things take a long time getting going, and if you've got incredible momentum at the beginning, and then that can turn into well, what's happening with this project, you know, and then you kind of try to manage that. But I think we've we've navigated that now. And I think it feels like full steam ahead into 2023. And that's, that's exciting. And that I think is going to be the most collaborative project. And I think it's perhaps difficult for formal organisations to understand this sometimes in terms of what our team is. Our team definitely isn't an NHS team. It's not even in a hospital or in a region. It's just people and those people can come from anywhere.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:07:13
 And for example, Rachel Collum has just been off to Sweden learning more about baby cuddles in neonatal care, because she was told 'You're not allowed. You can only have an hour' and all these reasons and for someone like that a parent to go off and research and find out how it's working in best practice abroad, and then bring that back to us. We need to bottle that. Have you got a bottle, Flo.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:07:13
 Yeah.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:07:39
 Totally. Er ooh my bottle. Yeah.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:07:42
 That was a good one, I think.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:07:45
 But actually, that might be putting it IN the bottle. Hang on.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:07:49
 I didn't get that.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:07:50
 It's not as loud. Is it? Hang on?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:07:53
 Oh, wait, I've got an idea ...
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:08:05
 Oh, dear,
 
 Gill Phillips  1:08:07
 But we can't be talking all day. So here's to family integrated care and the potential for 2023. And that sounds a bit like Jingle Bells and reindeer. So it's getting very festive. So ...
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:08:22
 I'm thinking, have we got to the end? Do you want to pull a cracker?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:08:27
 Oh, that sounds fun.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:08:29
 Actually, when I got this out, I thought this reminds me of the Advent story I did on language. Do you remember that?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:08:39
 I do. I do. Yes, I do.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:08:41
 And I started with one of these.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:08:44
 A cracker.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:08:45
 So yeah. So here we go. Are you are you ready to pull a cracker, Gill?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:08:51
 Let's do it.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:08:59
 Didn't go, hang on.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:09:00
 I've got the other end Pull. Pull Pull.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:09:02
 I hope you got that. Hang on.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:09:09
 I thought it did.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:09:09
 Oh, it's like gunpowder now. Where's my hat gone.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:09:12
 I've got crackers. I've got crackers
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:09:15
 Stuff flew out! Yeah, my hat fell on the floor, I think. Oh, hang on. I haven't got a hat. But I have got a little Christmas tree. There we go. Is that a wrap?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:09:34
 Ah a little Christmas tree. I think that's a wrap into 2023. We didn't know what 2022 would bring and I think we probably had no idea that we could talk about that many different things. So let's see where it goes.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:09:50
 Oh, hang on. I've got a joke. Did ... you'll like this!
 
 Gill Phillips  1:09:56
 Oh, is it appropriate, Flo? I don't know what your crackers are like.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:10:00
 Because you've got teachers in the family. Did Rudolph go to school?
 
 Gill Phillips  1:10:06
 I don't know. Did Rudolph go to school?
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:10:08
 No, he was Elf taught!
 
 Gill Phillips  1:10:17
 I like that.
 
 Florence Wilcock  1:10:18
 You can decide if you keep that in or not. But that's the joke from the cracker.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:10:24
 Thank you.
 
 Gill Phillips  1:10:26
 I hope you have enjoyed this episode. If so, please subscribe now to hear more of these fascinating conversations on your favourite podcast platform. And please leave a review. I tweet as @WhoseShoes. Thank you for being on this journey with me. And let's hope that together we can make a difference.