Labour Ward Lead Midwife

Job summary

An exciting new opportunity has come up in the Maternity Department at the William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, Kent.

The Labour Ward Lead Midwife will primarily work on the Labour Ward, and will be responsible for both clinical and administration duties. You will provide leadership to the Labour Ward team and be a role model in delivering excellent women centred, evidence based, quality care.

If you would like to be part of our amazing team, this is the job for you.

As a team we are working hard to ensure we put women and families at the heart of everything we do. We are on an exciting improvement journey and can offer you a rewarding, flexible and supportive role providing a full range of midwifery care.

You will have the skills and the experience to support the rest of the unit when required to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the service for women and their families. Leading the service into the future is a key requirement and working closely with the consultant midwife, obstetricians and the matron.

Main duties of the job

Provide effective leadership for all midwifery staff within their clinical area, maintaining clinical / professional competence and credibility. Utilise clinical sessions to role model standards of care and expected behaviour to measure agreed standards of midwifery practice, and gain additional accessibility to patients, families and members of staff.

Actively work to support and empower all midwifery staff to develop and utilise clinical leadership skills, ensuring they are supported to undertake their role effectively in an autonomous and accountable manner

Contribute to the implementation of the Trust Strategy for Nursing and Midwifery utilising the "we care values".

Maintain a high standard of midwifery care through planning, implementing and evaluating needs of all women in order to ensure safe, effective and high-quality care

Work clinically in order to maintain clinical expertise and act as a role model for their allocated setting, up to 60% of the time.

Have an overview of all women who have been provided with care on the Labour Ward, and develop a dashboard for reporting themes and trends

To communicate and participate with multidisciplinary team to provide the optimum care for women.

To liaise with the Midwifery Led Unit and Postnatal ward co-ordinators to ensure that there is continuity of care delivered to the women and their families.

To support Maternity Triage and their implementation of BSOTS

About us

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people.

Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'.

We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Applications for this role should be written by the applicant. If artificial intelligence (AI) programmes are used then the application may be rejected due to this document being an important part of the assessment process. This does not prevent applicants seeking appropriate support with applications should they need to for the purposes of any declared disability.