Holding Time
Holding Time is a groundbreaking creative health , breastfeeding intervention which was designed and commissioned for Improving Me, NHS Cheshire Women’s Health and Maternity programme by Lisa Creagh, to address chronically low breastfeeding rates in the region and UK. The model was developed to support scale and spread, whilst enabling bespoke developments in place. It aims to overcome cultural barriers to breastfeeding and empower women to share their stories to bring breastfeeding conversations from the fringes of the NHS and society to centre stage.
It uses photo documentation and the spoken and written word of women to convey deeply important messages to other women and the healthcare system. It provides both a call for action and insights into some of the solutions, chiefly the importance of the visibility of breastfeeding in society. Holding Time is co-designed with researchers, health professionals and mothers, using creative activities to strengthen local communities, and promote pride in place. This iterative project encourages balanced debate through listening to mothers lived experience via interviews, podcast , live events and radio as well as mothers own creative writing.
As an NHS Maternity Vanguard and Accelerator site Improving Me is delighted to say the extensive development activity in Cheshire and Merseyside has led to Holding Time being shortlisted for a Royal College of Midwives national public health award in 2023 and most recently success in a Royal Society for Public Health 'Health & Wellbeing Award' in December 2024. It has also been commissioned by Halton’s Public Health Team and Family Hub network as well as the Born In Bradford team in Yorkshire.
In 2023 Improving Me initiated an ongoing and important Holding Time partnership with Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Healing Arts team, to develop a hospital touring exhibition of Holding Time images as part of Baby Week and the NHS 75. You may ask why a breastfeeding exhibition in a general hospital not a maternity unit as many NHS colleagues and members of the public have? The answer is why not? Would you question an exhibition focused on men in a hospital?
It is also fairly straightforward when you examine a recent IFS report which highlights the role of women in healthcare, more than three-quarters of all NHS employees, and 90% of registered nurses and midwives in England are women. And, 48% of all doctors and dentists are women, and this rises to more than half for the under-50s. The majority of these women will become mothers during their careers: over a six-year period ILF observed, more than 17% of female nurses/midwives and doctors/dentists under the age of 50 go on maternity leave and, at any point in time, 3.7% of female doctors and dentists under the age of 50 and 3.4% of female nurses and midwives under the age of 50 are on maternity leave. The stats literally stack up.
The extent to which women can combine work in the NHS with motherhood also has important implications for recruitment, retention and hours of work. The Holding Time exhibition has proved to be a crucial driver in supporting key hospital conversations about how NHS employers deliver on legal responsibilities and focus on wider issues about the experiences of staff on returning to work. Holding Time has proved not only a catalyst for improvement for the public but a key workforce too. This work is ongoing and we plan to provide further updates over 2025.