Job overview
We are looking for an individual who is experienced in assessing fetal wellbeing at the different maternity settings and is skilled and experienced in teaching. The postholder will be expected to support Labour Ward as well as the other maternity areas and work collaboratively with the multidisciplinary team to ensure a safe and efficient service.
The role will require the individual to take a lead on teaching and ensuring training targets are met for fetal wellbeing in accordance to the National requirements.
The role will require the postholder to work collaboratively with the matron to ensure the smooth running of the service including training and orientating and updates.
The postholder will be required to keep abreast of any changes to process or protocol and will be able to able to educate all necessary staff of these changes.
The postholder must be prepared to be part of the team supporting training and assessment for student and preceptorship midwives.
We are lucky to be able to work and provide care in our beautiful, purpose built maternity unit. We currently look after 4700 births per year and book over 5000 women for antenatal care.
Main duties of the job
1. To support and work with the teams across the Maternity department to develop a programme plan to facilitate the implementation of a clinically based teaching and competency based assessment package to aim towards achieving better birth outcomes.
2. To develop staff awareness in recognising pathophysiological factors that could contribute to misinterpretation of the fetal heart pattern. This will be relevant when using both intermittent auscultation plotted on a partogram and electronic monitoring using a cardiotocographs (CTGs). To develop and expand midwives' competence in undertaking intermittent auscultation of the fetal heart when caring for low risk women as per NICE guidelines, utilising the most current and robust evidence based practice
3. Ensure staff can intelligently auscultate the fetal heart in labour in the midwifery led unit and at home reflective in the documentation, and increase confidence in staff in auscultating the fetal heart intermittently using either a pinard or hand held sonicaid.
Working for our organisation
North Mid is part of North Central London integrated care system – consisting of the NHS and Local authority organisations in Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. As with other ICS’s, we are working increasingly closely with partners and indeed many of our financial and performance objectives are measured at this system level. Whilst all organisations remain as standalone, statutory bodies we have an ICS infrastructure for making shared decisions and agreeing shared approaches.
We are proud of our staff and want to ensure their training allows them to provide excellent clinical care. We are also a training unit for medical students from UCL and St George’s University Grenada, and for nursing and midwifery students from Middlesex and City Universities.
Take a tour of our hospital
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
4. To further embed and develop the current competency testing for fetal monitoring to assess and improve the knowledge and skills of all staff providing intrapartum and antenatal care across all maternity settings.
5. To produce and cascade out and embed into practice an “intelligent intermittent auscultation” training package and lead on the use of this in training midwives who provide intrapartum care on the Delivery Suites, the Midwifery Led Unit and in the woman’s home.
6. Ensure that all midwives and obstetricians providing antenatal and intrapartum care undertake the competency test in assessing fetal wellbeing.
7. In conjunction with the midwifery education team provide enhanced teaching and additional support to staff who need to repeat the competency test to in order to achieve and demonstrate the expected levels of knowledge.
8. Lead weekly CTG workshops, maintaining an electronic database to evidence attendance registers and ensure compliance to the mandatory requirement for midwives and medical staff. Disseminate learning which emerges from workshops.
9. Organise CTG master classes on the monthly mandatory training week ensuring the attendance of all eligible staff.
10. Develop, in conjunction with the Maternity Matrons, Obstetric Lead for Delivery Suite and the Obstetric Lead for Risk, an audit form (on a daily basis) for case reviews all emergency deliveries i.e. instrumental and caesarean sections in the previous twenty-four hours to review the interpretation of CTGs and subsequent management of care. Use findings of such cases for reflective practice sessions, to cascade and evidence learning from good practice and identify areas for further development
11. Use every opportunity to facilitate teaching, learning and reflection within the clinical area.
12. When required to work as a practicing midwife within the maternity unit and undertake unit coordinator duties as required
13. Ensure staff are assessing fetal well-being in the context of the woman's health, pregnancy, gestation and stage of labour by observing how handover is communicated at change of shifts, midwife to doctor communication when referrals are made and listening to assessments made over the telephone (SBAR).
14. Ensure that interpretation of fetal assessment is undertaken with a structured approach, reflective of recommendations within our current guidelines and that all documentation reflects this approach.
Person specification
Education and qualifications
Essential criteria
15. Registered Midwife
16. Recognised leadership qualification or equivalent experience.
17. Graduate or equivalent qualification/or experience
18. Mentoring qualification.
Desirable criteria
19. Recognised teaching qualification.
20. ALSO/NLS/PROMP T Instructor.
Skills and abilities
Essential criteria
21. Expert knowledge of midwifery and normal birth agenda.
22. Expert knowledge of caring for women in the acute labour ward.
23. Expert knowledge of interpretation of CTG readings in all clinical settings.
24. Expert knowledge on facilitation of normal birth.
25. Expert knowledge on intermittent auscultation of the fetal heart. Knowledge of health policy.
26. Knowledge of quality standard setting and audit.
27. Research skills
28. Demonstrable leadership skills.
29. Emotional Intelligence.
30. Organisation and management skills.
31. Ability to influence, motivate and inspire others. Negotiating skills and ability to resolve conflict.
32. Ability to manage change.
33. Team building skills
34. Teaching skills especially within the clinical setting.
Desirable criteria
35. In depth understanding of how adults learn.
36. Experience of facilitating reflective practice sessions.
37. Experience of using an appreciative enquiry approach to situations that arise.
We reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once a sufficient number of applications have been received.
You will only be contacted by the Recruitment Team via email if you are shortlisted for this post. Please ensure therefore that you check your e-mail account regularly.
Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, (NLPSS) who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of NMUH.
If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks your identity and right to work documentation will be verified remotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit
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