Introduction
The Lancashire and South Cumbria local maternity and neonatal system has four NHS providers of maternity care: Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, East Lancashire Hospitals Trust; Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust and University Hospitals Morecambe Bay Trust offering the full choice of birth setting from home birth to obstetric led birth at a number of sites. See about us for more information.
Our vision for Lancashire and South Cumbria is to have a full establishment of maternity professionals, reflective of our diverse local populations, who feel encouraged and supported to develop and progress in their chosen careers.
This resource hub provides information and resources for those exploring careers within maternity, including videos from local maternity provider Trust midwives and other maternity health care professionals plus information from our partner universities about how you can commence your journey into these rewarding careers.
Job Roles
Community Midwife
I am a Community midwife working in a small-town area.
I have been in this role for several years after working as a rotational midwife, in a busy Hospital setting.
The role of the Community Midwife is unique within the role of the Midwifery.
From booking to birth and after, the relationship you aim to develop can at time overwhelm you, but the gains are immense for the birthing person, as you watch them grow in confidence or guide them through some very difficult times.
Listening to their choices when they can be opposite to your advice, is all part of the role.
The job role is all about constant learning, to see a birthing person at home with their child safe and happy makes all the hard work worth it.
Maternity Support Worker
Being part of a family’s journey, no matter how small, is a privilege and this makes working as an MSW is highly rewarding. The role is evolving and there are now progression pathways in place making it an exciting time to become part of the maternity workforce.Â
A common misconception about being an MSW is that you are around babies all day, as lovely as this would be our main role is to support the midwives in giving care throughout the whole pregnancy and in the early weeks post birth.
There are many roles under the umbrella, some of these are Antenatal Clinic MSWs, Community MSWs or Health and Well-Being MSWs to name just a few.
All of these positions require excellent communication skills as well as compassion and care. There are also clinical skills required to being an MSW such as venepuncture, performing basic observations and new born blood spot testing,
However they can be taught on the job and you will be supported to gain these skills.
Community Midwife Manager
I have been the Community Midwifery Manager since 2018, after being a Community Midwife for 10 years.
Those 10 years gave me extensive experience of Community Midwifery, providing up to date, evidence based, individualised antenatal and postnatal care, as well as supporting and contributing in providing a home birth service and building good relationships with the women and families of Blackpool Fylde and Wyre.
It is an honour to now be in the position to support all our Community Midwives, whether experienced midwives or junior members of the team. Listening to the midwives and being accessible for support is essential, as well as enabling their voices to be heard and making improvements where necessary. This may involve working with the wider multidisciplinary team to update policies in line with best available evidence and research to ensure excellent safe and effective care.
I Deal with all community incidents/complaints, so lessons are learnt, and improvements are made to the service where necessary as well as dealing with and directing any compliments that are received by the women to the appropriate midwives.
Many women in Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre request care outside our policies and guidelines. As such, I work with the multidisciplinary team to support these families to ensure safe plans of care are in place for mum and baby. This entails detailed discussions with these women and their families of any risks that may be associated to their request, how we would manage any issues and provide reassurance where necessary as well as liaising with and supporting the Community Midwives through this process. This ensures the patients can make fully informed choices on their decisions of care and enables informed consent to be achieved to maintain a safe and positive birth experience for the families as well as the midwives providing that care.
News & updates
North West Safeguarding Newsletter 09-01-2023
Maternity Transformation Programme Bulletin No.122: 9 November 2022
