South East London Celebrates Double Win at London Maternity and Neonatal Excellence Awards 2025
South East London’s Local Maternity and Neonatal System (SEL LMNS) has been recognised for outstanding achievement at the London Maternity and Neonatal Excellence Awards 2025, held at The Clermont Hotel, Charing Cross, on 17th September.
SEL LMNS was nominated in three out of six categories, taking home two prestigious awards and a highly commended mention—demonstrating the team’s commitment to innovation, partnership, and reducing inequalities in maternity and neonatal care.
Winner: Service User Partnership Award
SEL LMNS won the Service User Partnership Award for its pioneering work in improving information on preconception care. Recognising that nearly half of UK pregnancies are unplanned, the team set out to address the lack of accessible, culturally sensitive preconception support. Over 130 service users—including refugees, migrants, young adults, and fathers-to-be—were actively involved in co-creating resources that reflect real community needs.
Despite limited funding, the team launched a digital-first campaign in partnership with Tommy’s Charity, achieving over 870,000 impressions (including more than 520,000 via TikTok), nearly 13,000 landing page views, and almost 2,000 completions of an interactive planning tool. Resources were distributed in over 75 trusted community locations, ensuring accessibility for those less likely to engage with traditional health settings. The project has driven system-level change, integrating better preconception care into Women’s Health Hubs and delivering tailored training to professionals. Local ambassadors now lead grassroots efforts across Lambeth, Greenwich, and Southwark.
Winner: Innovation in Maternity and Neonatal Care
SEL LMNS also took home the Innovation in Maternity and Neonatal Care Award for its digital pocket guides for clinicians. These guides standardise essential knowledge and provide midwives and obstetricians with practical, evidence-based tools to deliver personalised care. The guides have been widely adopted, with 80% of clinicians rating them highly for supporting personalised care and over 70% reporting significant improvement in communication skills, especially around complex risk discussions.
Already in use across England and Scotland, the guides are being updated to reflect the latest evidence and have attracted national interest, including from the Royal College of Midwives. This initiative demonstrates how co-produced, evidence-based tools can drive measurable improvements in maternity care and empower clinicians to support truly informed, personalised choices for women, birthing people, and families.
Highly Commended: Reducing Inequalities in Maternity and Neonatal Care
SEL LMNS received a Highly Commended mention for its Foreign-Language Parent Education Pilot, designed to address inequities in care for migrant and asylum-seeking women with limited English proficiency. The pilot delivered 24 multilingual sessions across
six priority languages, reaching 168 registered women. Outcomes were outstanding: 95% felt more informed, 84% better understood their rights, and 79% felt more confident about giving birth.
This pilot exemplifies equity-driven innovation and is a scalable model with strong potential for wider adoption across London.
