14 January 2026
The maternity department at Leicester Royal Infirmary (LRI) has received a much needed community midwife bag following a donation from MEC Consulting Group in partnership with Baby Lifeline.
At a charity party hosted by Richborough, MEC was one of ten businesses from across the built environment sector to sponsor a community midwife bag, which are developed, managed and delivered by national charity, Baby Lifeline. Each bag provides essential equipment in easy-to-identify, colour coded sections, helping community midwives provide the safest possible care to women and babies when attending home births.
Baby Lifeline offered each sponsor the opportunity to nominate a maternity unit to receive their bag, with MEC selecting the Leicester Royal Infirmary.
“When we realised we had the choice of which hospital our donation would go to, we immediately asked the team for nominations,” explains MEC’s Group Head of Marketing and Business Development, Hayley Knight. “As our head office is in Leicestershire, many of our staff have had their own children at the LRI so this was the favourite.
“At Richborough’s event, Baby Lifeline initially sought sponsorship for one bag but after explaining how there is nothing like them provided by the NHS and what a significant difference they make to community midwives, an additional nine businesses donated. We are delighted to support LRI’s community midwife team and are excited our donation will have such a positive impact.”
To handover all ten bags, Baby Lifeline organised a presentation at Gateley’s head office in Birmingham. This event brought together representatives from all ten sponsors and recipient maternity units for a special photocall with BBC Call the Midwife star, Linda Bassett, who is a patron of Baby Lifeline.
After receiving the bag, Claire Ayres, Community Team Lead at University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) said: “UHL was delighted to receive the generous donation of a Baby Lifeline bag from MEC Consulting Group.
“The Baby Lifeline bag contains essential equipment required by community midwives in emergency situations, enabling kits to be more concise, organised, and readily accessible. UHL Community Midwifery services provide care to patients across a variety of settings, therefore having all essential equipment available in one readily accessible kit is invaluable. The donated bag will be located within a hub environment, ensuring it is accessible to the wider team when required. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to MEC Consulting Group for this very kind and greatly appreciated donation."
Baby Lifeline’s founder and CEO, Judy Ledger MBE concludes: “Every mother and baby deserves the safest birth experience possible, no matter the place of birth, so we are incredibly thankful to our generous property partners for their fantastic support.
“We have worked hard to create the gold standard in midwifery equipment and believe that our Community Midwife bags now offer everything needed to give the safest and best care for home births.”
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