Charlotte Bevan

I work with Rachel Plachcinski on parent, patient and public involvement (PPPI) for the DECIDE project. We also lead on PPPI at the Policy Research Unit in Maternal and Neonatal Health and Care (PRU-MNHC) at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) at the Nuffield Department for Population Health (NDPH) at the University of Oxford.

I worked for more than a decade as a journalist in the UK and in south-east Asia as a BBC World Service correspondent. I changed careers after my daughter Hope died shortly after birth, due to events in labour in 2001. I subsequently worked at Sands, a charity which supports families whose baby has died before, during or shortly after birth for 17 years. With colleagues, I helped innovate and support work to ensure the parent voice was heard in policy, service and research initiatives to improve care for women and families. As a Sands representative on the MBRRACE-UK collaboration, and as a co-author on The Lancet stillbirth series, I have helped highlight the enormous financial and emotional impacts perinatal harm and death during labour has on the NHS and families. I now work as a public involvement consultant on academic studies.