Health Innovation West Midlands is pleased to be supporting the first ‘open access’ Black Maternity Matters course, starting on 30 April 2026 in Birmingham.

Black Maternity Matters focuses on anti-racist action to address the poorer outcomes faced by Black mothers and their babies in NHS maternity and neonatal services.

The six-month programme delivers in-depth, anti-racist training to multidisciplinary health and care professionals through a combination of in-person, whole-day sessions, supplemented by online book clubs to embed the learning and support for quality improvement (QI) projects to turn the learning into action.

First piloted in 2022 in Bristol, Black Maternity Matters was developed collaboratively by Health Innovation West of England, BCohCo, Representation Matters, and Black Mothers Matter, and nearly 600 health and care professionals have completed the programme to date.

With the face-to-face sessions to be held in Birmingham, this new course is open to local perinatal colleagues here in the West Midlands and from further afield, so long as participants can commit to all three in-person sessions and three online book clubs.

Dale Lyons, Senior Project Manager at Health Innovation West Midlands said:

“We are thrilled to partner with the Black Maternity Matters collaborative to bring this ground-breaking training programme to our region. Tackling perinatal racism is a major priority for us and we are committed to playing a pivotal role in championing and delivering equality and diversity through our work.”