May 2023

Welcome from Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, Chief Midwifery Officer for England 

From the development of a national and regional midwifery and obstetric career structure, including two deputy chief midwifery officers, seven regional chief midwives and their deputies. I have worked across professions, supporting the plans for my obstetric colleagues to recruit seven regional obstetricians. This infrastructure not only provides a career structure for aspirant Chief Midwives, it also provides the necessary support for safer maternity care, ensuring that maternity health outcomes and experiences remain central to all plans and surveillance triggers timely support. In addition we have increased numbers of midwifery ambassadors showcasing midwifery as a career, increased numbers of professional midwifery advocates and funded a retention midwife for every unit in England, supporting midwives to not only stay, but to stay well and thrive. I am also proud of our work on equity and equality – making a difference to women and families including our national NHSE equity guidance and the plans for focused work through the Maternity Disparities Taskforce – and to our workforce  – with reverse mentoring, fellowships and much, much more. And let’s remember, much of this has been against the backdrop of a global pandemic.

It seems fitting that my departure should come the week after International Day of the Midwife. I want to reiterate my thanks to all midwives in England. Thank you for your dedication and commitment, for using evidence-based care to best support women, babies and families, and for supporting each other. Seeing your posts and celebrations on social media highlighted to me some of the incredible innovation and teamwork happening up and down the country, day in and day out.

I was honoured to be invited to the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire conference on International Day of the Midwife itself – topics discussed in depth included bereavement support, pre-term births, fetal monitoring and clinical audits. It was clear that the midwifery teams I met are passionate about innovation and best-practice in midwifery care, which was wonderful to see, and I know they’re just one example of the commitment we have in the midwifery profession to continue improving our services now and in the future.

Before I leave, I want to remind you to look after yourselves; we must do this in order to be able to care for others. Our work can be challenging, tiring and emotional. Remember to be kind to yourselves and others. You’ve heard me say this before, but I’ll say it again: what you do, will ripple through generations. Your contribution to improving maternity health outcomes and experiences is unequivocally significant.

It has been an absolute honour to be the Chief Midwifery Officer for England and I will continue to champion all of you from my new role. I was delighted to be invited to write this blog by the NMC and I leave you with this blog.

Latest news

International day of the midwife 2023

Thanks to all of you who shared your innovations, celebrations and best practice for International day of the midwife 2023. Here are a few Twitter highlights if you missed them on the day:

• A personal video message from Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent OBE
• A thank you to all midwives from the national NHS England twitter account
• There are now 1,400 midwives in England trained as Professional Midwifery Advocates, supporting midwifery colleagues in education, revalidation, quality improvement and restorative clinical supervision. We profiled Paula Anderson, Lead Professional Midwifery Advocate, Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, to find out about her role.
• ‘I’m so lucky to have found a job I love and have passion for.' Midwife Ann from King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has dedicated almost 50 years to working in the NHS! From training to be a nurse, and then a midwife — she’s never looked back. “Midwifery is such an important profession – it touches almost everyone’s life.”
• James’ career journey is amazing. Leaving banking to find a more fulfilling role where he could help people, he called the Health Careers phoneline where the adviser mentioned midwifery. Now a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Evidence Based Midwifery at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, as well as a clinical fellow for the chief midwifery office at NHS England.
• Abi and Ani were the first two internationally-educated midwives to join Bedford Hospital last year. “We never actually comprehended the idea of being a midwife in the UK. However, with the support and warm welcome of the maternity team, here we are one year later!" Abi and Ani are pictured below.

Our NHS at 75 – telling your story through the lens

To mark its 75th anniversary, the NHS has teamed up with Fujifilm to launch a photography exhibition for NHS staff and volunteers to share their unique stories of the NHS across five categories. No matter your style or level or whether you’re using a digital camera or your smartphone – we want to see your best photography work and encourage you to be as creative as possible. The judging panel will choose five winners – one per category –to be displayed at the NHS’s 75th anniversary service at Westminster Abbey on 5 July. The winning photos, along with 70 commended entries, will also be displayed in a dedicated exhibition in Fujifilm’s House of Photography in London. For more information and to enter, visit https://www.nhs75-fujifilm.com/

Additionally, the NHS has teamed up with Inspiring the Future to inspire children to consider a career in the Service. The ‘NHS Ambassadors’ programme connects NHS staff with schools to give talks – in person or virtually. By talking about their job, NHS staff will help to illustrate the connection between what students are studying in the classroom and the potential opportunities available in the NHS, recognising that the service has over 350 careers on offer. Schools and teachers who would like to arrange a talk, should visit: www.england.nhs.uk/NHS75talks.

Help us make finding NHS Services easier

Looking for NHS services can be difficult. That's why NHS England created NHS Service Finder, a tool for healthcare professionals to find services and access important patient information.

To make Service Finder even better, we need your input. Please take our 5-minute survey to help us understand when and how you search for NHS services, and how NHS Service Finder could benefit you.

Link to survey: Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management (digital.nhs.uk)

Link to register/access NHS Service Finder: Sign in to your account - NHS Service Finder

Link to more information about NHS Service Finder: NHS Service Finder - NHS Digital

The Summary Care Record application is changing

The National Care Records Service (NCRS) is the improved successor to the Summary Care Record application (SCRa). We require all users and organisations to switch from SCRa to NCRS by 29 September 2023. You can switch and start using NCRS now.

The switchover to NCRS is quick and simple. With the right software installed on the users’ device, it can be as easy as changing a web link. 

NCRS provides a quick, secure way to access national patient information to improve clinical decision making and healthcare outcomes and it is free to use.  

For more information and to find out how you can switchover to NCRS for your organisation, visit our website.

Culture and Leadership Programme update

Aspiring Midwifery Leadership Development Programme 

As the programme draws to a close, we have invited participants to come together in-person with their peers to network, collaborate and reflect on what they have learnt about themselves, leadership qualities and consider future plans for as a leaders. We are formally evaluating the programme but initial feedback has been extremely positive, with participants feeding back that they have felt real benefit from the coaching and insights into leadership, some quotes are captured below:

“This programme has changed my career – thank you”

“I feel more confident in being able to change culture with my team and wider system”

The Perinatal Culture and Leadership Development Programme, made up of three phases:

Phase one is the ‘Quad’ programme which began in November 2022 and is due to complete enrolment in March 2024, with 5 intakes over this period covering all maternity and neonatal sites in England. This phase of the programme focuses on the perinatal senior leadership team or ‘quad’, representatives of four professional groups with responsibility for supporting, role modelling and leading the cultural environment in that site (typically, the head/director of midwifery, obstetric clinical director / lead, neonatal lead and maternity operations manager).

Phase 2 is the SCORE culture survey, which provides a cultural overview of each service. It is an anonymous, online tool that can be used to gain insight into a team’s safety culture to help the team identify strengths and opportunities. The survey is being provided to every Trust as part of the participation in the Programme – everyone in the maternity and neonatal service can fill in the survey and there will be no direct cost to any organisation as it is funded nationally.  

Phase three is socialising of results and planning for improvement. Each site will be allocated an independent lead to facilitate conversations about survey findings with front line teams, and to work with senior leaders and other stakeholders to co-develop an improvement plan based around a small number of identified themes. 

Our first trusts are nearing the end of phase 1 and their SCORE survey’s close on Sunday 14 May. Teams have been working hard to complete the survey and we are pleased to see a positive uptake in the majority of Trusts.

Those in intake 2 have started the programme in the past month, with intakes 3, 4 and 5 starting in July, October and November respectively. We’ve received great feedback from participants of the programme, in terms of both the programme delivery and the personal and team benefits and thank everyone who has taken time so far to feed back to us. If you would like to feed back on your experience on the programme, or have any questions regarding your involvement in the future please do email us on england.perinatalcultureleadership@nhs.net.

Supporting our workforce

Advanced Practice in Midwifery – Implementation guide launch

To support the successful implementation of The Advanced Clinical Practice in Midwifery Capabilities Framework, we are delighted to announce the launch of the Advanced Practice in Midwifery Implementation Guide. The implementation guide provides an overview of advanced practice in midwifery and offers insights into topics including education and training, workforce planning, governance, supervision, and career development, as well as links to other resources and case study examples. 

Safer staffing e-learning 

The Fundamentals of Safer Staffing e-learning is now available to colleagues seeking an introduction to safer staffing principles. This will be particularly helpful for clinical managers and team leaders to support safe nursing and midwifery workforce planning. The e-learning provides an overview of the essential components of safer staffing and introduces the underpinning policy context and other key considerations. It also describes the links with patient safety and quality care, staff deployment and what good governance looks like. Colleagues interested in an introduction to safer staffing principles and their application within teams across the NHS are encouraged to complete the e-learning.

Developed in partnership between the CNO Safer Staffing Faculty at NHS England, system leaders and the former-Health Education England, the e-learning programme was authored by Sinead O’Neill, a Fellow of the first cohort of the CNO Safer Staffing Fellowship programme. This marks an exciting phase for the Fellowship programme as the knowledge, skills and commitment to safer staffing amongst its Fellows begins to be demonstrably felt in shaping safer staffing practice, locally, regionally and nationally. More resources featuring major contributions by Fellows are expected later in the year. Find out more about the Fellowship programme here.

National preceptorship framework for midwifery 

National preceptorship resources are now available to support newly registered midwives nationwide to embed their knowledge into everyday practice, grow in confidence and have the best possible start to their careers. The national preceptorship framework for midwifery seeks to set national standards for preceptorship and establishes a framework for good practice that can be adopted across all regions in England. The framework is a sister document to the national preceptorship framework for nursing and can also be extended to other professional groups. Organisations are asked to achieve core standard by September 2023 and aim for gold standard thereafter. Implementing the preceptorship framework is one of five high impact actions organisations are encouraged to prioritise to maximise the retention and experience of nursing and midwifery staff. If you lead, manage or facilitate the retention of midwives in regions, systems or organisations, join our nursing and midwifery retention Future NHS community.

Sharing an example of good practice: CapitalMidwife Ethnic Minority Fellowship Programme 2022

In 2022, following the publication of the Turning the Tide report, CapitalMidwife worked with ethnic minority maternity leaders to pilot a Fellowship to support band 6 and 7 midwives to move into leadership roles. Thirty-one Fellows were recruited from trusts across London, with priority given to midwives from ethnic groups that report facing the highest levels of discrimination with regards to career progression, those who had been in the same band for a long period of time, and those who had not been successful in recent job applications.

The Fellows’ feedback on all aspects of the fellowship was overwhelmingly positive, and evaluation of the impact on their skills and confidence shows the potential that exists in all our staff, which needs to be nurtured and allowed to flourish.

Highlights from the evaluation include:

• 33% of the 30 Fellows who completed the programme moved into a more senior role during, or within three months of completing, the Fellowship and concluded that attending the Fellowship had helped them to achieve their promotion.
• All participants who completed the Fellowship were able to apply new learning in the workplace.
• There is anecdotal feedback the Fellowship programme has had a positive impact on the fellows attending and remain in a midwifery role.

A copy of the evaluation of the Fellowship programme can be obtained from: england.capitalmidwife@nhs.net

Return to midwifery: attracting midwives with an active UK NMC PIN back into the NHS

It is a crucial time to grow our maternity workforce and support women, babies and their families with the highest standards of safe and personalised care.

NHS England is offering support to trusts to attract midwives with an active UK NMC PIN to return to midwifery through a new initiative. Resources have been shared with trusts and are available on the Future NHS platform to support the recruitment of returning midwives.

We recognise that each midwife’s return will be individual and may require some support from clinical practice teams. To complement local programmes, a new e-learning package (Back to the Floor) is available here via elearning for Healthcare to support midwives to return to frontline care with confidence and the required competence.

A dedicated registration page for those interested in returning is available. The national Maternity Workforce Programme team will connect prospective returners with regions, LMNSs and trusts as appropriate, allowing regional and local teams to directly approach prospective returners.

For further information please contact: england.nursingworkforce@nhs.net

Course 3 of the Core Manager: Developing Inclusive Workplaces programme is now live

If you have already completed the first two courses in the Core Manager programme you can now begin the next course, Course 3: Noticing and Challenging Microaggressions.

If you are a manager or supervisor in health and care but haven’t already signed up for the Core Manager programme then it’s not too late. This programme is available through the NHS Leadership Academy and is made up of a suite of online short courses:

Course 1 Inclusive Leadership in Health and Care 

Course 2 Creating a Psychological Contract

Course 3 Noticing and Challenging Microaggressions

(Further courses coming soon)

By enrolling you will develop your knowledge around equality, diversity and inclusion in medical services and it will help you develop core inclusive leadership skills.

Equity and equality

Virtual Symposium for Senior Minority Ethnic Nurses & Midwives (8b & above), Allies and System Leads

Theme: Breakthrough, Accountability and Thrive 

Date: 19 June 2023

Time: 10:00-15:00

Aim: To increase representation of 8b and above Black, Asian, and Ethnic minority nurses and midwives nationally by inspiring confidence, highlighting opportunities, harnessing system support, showcasing best practice; working with and challenging the system leaders to deliver measurable step change nationally and across regions.

Please register here.

International recruitment

Newly launched International Retention Toolkit 

The national retention team, in collaboration with NHS Employers, has launched a toolkit focused on supporting the retention of internationally recruited staff to stay and stay well.

The toolkit is aimed at line managers and employers and provides best practice and resources to create an environment for international colleagues to stay, thrive and build lasting careers in the NHS. It should be used alongside NHS Employers’ International Recruitment Toolkit and NHS England and NHS Employers’ Improving Staff Retention Guide to support your overall approach to recruiting and retaining international and domestic staff.

The system-facing We are the NHS campaign: ‘Your career. Our commitment’ features a dedicated careers hub with stories from colleagues and specialist resources to support colleagues to stay and stay well.

Colleagues can find resources for NHS and local authorities to use on campaign resources.

Chief Midwifery Officer Awards

Our nursing and midwifery awards are for people who have gone above and beyond their duty. The following are those awarded since the last issue of this bulletin:

CMidO Gold

• Janet Driver – Regional Chief Midwife for Midlands
• Rachel Carter - Director of Midwifery/Deputy Chief Nurse for Birmingham Women’s and Childrens Hospital

• Janet Fyle MBE – Royal College of Midwives

CMidO Silver

• Tosin Ikobayo – NHS Properties
• Denise McLellan – NHS England
• Jenise Jarvis - Barts Health NHS Trust
• Louisa Davidson – Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT
• Nicola Farmer – Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT
• Sophie Hudson – Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT
• Nicola Round – Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT
• Kookie Salt – Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT
• Ruth Cavey Wilcox – Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT

Useful resources

Quick links to resources you might find useful

‘Invisible’ Muslim women’s voices heard in maternity report

Improving equity and equality in maternity and neonatal care

Make every contact count – pregnancy Covid-19 vaccination infographic