Transforming Perceptions of Nursing and Midwifery April 30 Day Challenge Resource Pack - Arrange a meeting with your MP

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2. About the challenge
April’s 30 Day challenge aims to help nurses and midwives develop working
relationships with their MPs to build positive perceptions of the profession. We’d like
this to lead to strategic improvement in how MPs reflect and respond to the
professions in their work.
The challenge focuses on a call to action - to arrange a meeting with your MP and
to ask them to:
• Help shape or contribute to a potential event at that is being planned at Portcullis
House in October
• To pledge to build positive perceptions of the profession by signing a Commitment
Card (see page 13 – this is designed to be printed out for a photo opportunity
during your meeting)
• To have their picture taken with you to show that they are supporting Nursing Now
England or Transforming the Perceptions of Midwifery
This resource has been co-created with MPs, parliamentary advisors and nursing and
midwifery ambassadors. Thank you to all who have contributed.
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3. Meeting with your MP
Meeting with your Member of Parliament (MP) has been identified
as a key area for ambassadors to build positive perceptions of
nursing and midwifery because of the influence that they have.
The UK is divided into 650 areas called constituencies, and each
constituency is represented by one MP. Your MP is your
representative in government and is a figurehead for your local area.
MPs will generally only act on behalf of people who live in their own
constituency, so please check you are contacting the right MP for
your address.
You can use your postcode or a place name to search the Find your
MP service and find out the name of your MP and how to contact
them.
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4. How to make contact with your MP
Writing is probably the best method, as it provides a written record that can be
referred to later. You can:
• Write a letter to your MP at: House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
• Email them using the contact details in the Directory of MPs
Remember: always include your own address when you write to your MP so
that they will know you live in their constituency.
If writing is not possible or you just want to ask a quick question or make an
appointment, you can telephone your MP’s office:
• To telephone their office at the House of Commons, call 020 7219 3000 and
ask to be put through to their office giving your MP’s name
• To phone your MP at their local constituency office, you will find the contact
details at your local town hall or library, or it may be given in the Directory of
MPs
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5. Where and how will you meet?
It is best to meet face-to-face.
Your MP may like to spend some time with you and your team in
your clinical area to understand more about your work.
Get in touch with your organisation’s communication team about the
visit, as they will be able to support you with making the
arrangements and potentially getting some press coverage. You’ll
also be able to get a photo of the MP with their pledge (see slide
12)!
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6. Preparing for the meeting
• Being well-prepared for the meeting is really important. MPs work to rigid
time schedules and will usually need to arrive and leave at the agreed
time.
• This means you’ll need to plan your time together carefully. Make sure
you have prepared your organising statement (see page 8) and your
story, and allow time for conversations too.
• Your MP will be interested in you and your activities in the constituency –
make sure you talk about these at the beginning of your time together.
See slide 8 for more advice on having a productive conversation.
• Prepare an influence plan (see page 7). We’d suggest you sit down with
colleagues to brainstorm the plan well in advance of the meeting.
• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
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8. Creating Your Organising Statement
The purpose of an Organising Statement is to articulate clearly and succinctly what you want to
achieve, how, why, and when. Your Organising Statement will help you to shape your
conversation with your MP; you can refer back to it during the visit to ensure you are on track.
Here are some key sentences for structuring an Organising Statement:
I am organising (Who are you organising with?) : e.g. fellow nurses/midwives
to: (What is your goal?) e.g. to transform the perceptions of nurses and midwives so that we can
have a seat at the decision table; to encourage more young people in to nursing; to improve
recruitment and retention (you might like to include a specific issue for your organisation or area).
We’d like our MP to help us achieve this by making a pledge, or committing to attending the
proposed meeting at Portcullis House (see page 2).
through: (How will we do it?) e.g. inviting our MP to have a conversation with us, to visit our
workplace, and understand more about what we do.
by: (when will we have accomplished this by?) e.g. the end of December
Here is a suggested one for Nursing Now England:
I am organising Nursing Now England and Future Midwifery Ambassadors to meet with their local
MP to generate pledges for building positive perceptions of the professions.
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9. During the meeting
Below are some tips for having a meaningful and productive conversation with
your MP. This is not a rulebook to be read from, or done verbatim. These steps
are guide for important things you need to cover in order to build a strong
relationship for action:
• Introduce yourself and your organisation
• Explain why you are meeting and establish your credentials
• Clarify the time and structure of the meeting and ask for their consent for
photos
• Give your two minute story to explain why you’ve asked for the meeting,
and what you’d like to achieve
• Ask them to tell you about themselves. ‘So, tell me about you’
• Be quiet and let them speak!
• Ask ‘why’ questions – find issues that make them angry
• Tell them stories about your work to illustrate how your MP can get
involved
• Agree next steps
• Say thanks, and get contact details
• Evaluate – What is their self interest?
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10. After the meeting – follow up
• Follow up your meeting with a thank you letter or email, detailing
key actions and activities for follow up or noting.
• Keep in contact with your MP and let them know if things happen
locally that you know that they are particularly interested in getting
involved with.
• Post about it on Twitter – use the hashtags #NursingNowEngland
and #FutureMidwifery
• Write a blog with your reflections about the visit.
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11. After the meeting - Evaluation
Arranging a meeting with your MP Date:
Question Your reflection
How did the meeting feel for you?
What happened? (Often people will have
different perspectives on what took place or
may have just missed things. Starting by getting
an accurate account of what happened will help
for the rest of the reflection).
Did you follow your plan of action?
Yes – great! If no, why not?
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These are some points to think about with your team. These reflections may be
useful for your revalidation.
(continued overleaf)

12. Evaluation continued
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Question Your reflection
What was the reaction to our
Organising Statement?
Did we achieve our goal from the
meeting?
Were there any surprises?
What did we learn?
Would we do anything differently next
time?
What are our next steps? What do we
need to make these things happen?

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