Job summary
The aim of this role is to ensure that all staff providing antepartum and intrapartum care across Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW) Maternity Services are competent and skilled in fetal monitoring.
We are looking for an enthusiastic and committed Midwife with strong clinical leadership and facilitation skills.
The post-holder will work autonomously as the lead midwife practitioner for Fetal Surveillance and will lead on improving the standard of risk assessment and fetal monitoring in line with element 4 of the Saving Babies' Lives 2 Care Bundle.
The postholder will be a highly visible champion for safe and effective fetal heart rate interpretation through demonstration of expert clinical knowledge and practice. Education and training of maternity staff is a fundamental element of this post.
The postholder will communicate sensitive and complex information relating to abnormal fetal surveillance findings to parents in labour who will frequently be in pain and highly anxious
The role will support embedding our physiological approach to fetal monitoring applied to intelligent intermittent auscultation and CTG monitoring.
The Fetal Surveillance Midwife will work closely with the consultant obstetrician with advanced expert skills in fetal monitoring and work in partnership with the Delivery Suite Lead Midwife and Consultant in ensuring that care provided to mothers and babies is both safe and effective.
Main duties of the job
Represent the learning and development team to liaise with the Risk Management team to identify current trends in risk regarding fetal monitoring
Identifying cases to generate learning - from shop floor with no harm
Identifying cases to generate learning - from risk and governance and from term admissions to the neonatal unit from an intrapartum fetal monitoring perspective
Improve the safety and experience of women and families by developing staff to provide the appropriate level of fetal monitoring related clinical knowledge, skills and competencies. This will include establishing or use of existing systems to demonstrate practice development improvements, link training into risk assessment and share best practice.
Facilitate the orientation of fetal monitoring guidelines and practice for new members of staff.
About us
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is a large acute hospital trust in the south-east of England.
We provide a full range of general hospital services and some aspects of specialist and complex care to around 600,000 people living in West Kent and East Sussex. We have a team of over 8,000 full and part-time staff. We also provide specialist cancer services to around 2 million people across Kent and East Sussex via the Kent Oncology Centre. Fordcombe Hospital is near Tunbridge Wells and became part of the Trust in October 2024. It focusses on planned care and has two operating theatres, 28 inpatient and day care beds, diagnostic services including X-ray, MRI, CT and endoscopy, and a number of consultation and treatment rooms.
In the 2024 NHS staff survey, our employees ranked MTW among the top 10 NHS Trusts nationwide and the second-best Trust to work for in the South East.
Would you like to work flexibly?In the NHS, we are reminded every day of how important life is. As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Working collaboratively with obstetric consultants and the practice development team in maternity to increase midwives and obstetricians knowledge and competence in identifying fetal well-being, escalating and managing potential fetal compromise and actual fetal compromise in all clinical settings.
Develop staff awareness in recognising factors that could contribute to misinterpretation of cardiotocographs (CTGs) and impaired clinical decision making.
Ensure staff are assessing fetal well-being in the context of the woman's health, pregnancy, gestation, clinical risk factors and stage of labour and use this to inform their decision making
Develop midwives' competence in undertaking intermittent auscultation of the fetal heart in low risk women as per guidelines
Ensure staff can intelligently auscultate the fetal heart in labour in the midwifery led unit and at home and increase confidence in staff in auscultating the fetal heart intermittently
Ensure that all midwives and obstetricians providing antenatal care whether in the antenatal ward, clinic, day assessment unit and or triage undertake the competency test in assessing fetal wellbeing
Provide teaching and support for staff who need to repeat the competency test
Work with the education lead for maternity and CSFs to facilitate the weekly CTG and Intermittent Auscultation meetings, maintaining attendance registers to ensure compliance to the mandatory requirement for midwives and medical staff. Disseminate learning which emerges from workshops
Organise CTG master classes ensuring the attendance of all eligible staff
Use every opportunity to facilitate teaching, learning and reflection within the clinical area
Take responsibility for teaching sessions on mandatory training days with regards to fetal surveillance.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Working collaboratively with obstetric consultants and the practice development team in maternity to increase midwives and obstetricians knowledge and competence in identifying fetal well-being, escalating and managing potential fetal compromise and actual fetal compromise in all clinical settings.
Develop staff awareness in recognising factors that could contribute to misinterpretation of cardiotocographs (CTGs) and impaired clinical decision making.
Ensure staff are assessing fetal well-being in the context of the woman's health, pregnancy, gestation, clinical risk factors and stage of labour and use this to inform their decision making
Develop midwives' competence in undertaking intermittent auscultation of the fetal heart in low risk women as per guidelines
Ensure staff can intelligently auscultate the fetal heart in labour in the midwifery led unit and at home and increase confidence in staff in auscultating the fetal heart intermittently
Ensure that all midwives and obstetricians providing antenatal care whether in the antenatal ward, clinic, day assessment unit and or triage undertake the competency test in assessing fetal wellbeing
Provide teaching and support for staff who need to repeat the competency test
Work with the education lead for maternity and CSFs to facilitate the weekly CTG and Intermittent Auscultation meetings, maintaining attendance registers to ensure compliance to the mandatory requirement for midwives and medical staff. Disseminate learning which emerges from workshops
Organise CTG master classes ensuring the attendance of all eligible staff
Use every opportunity to facilitate teaching, learning and reflection within the clinical area
Take responsibility for teaching sessions on mandatory training days with regards to fetal surveillance.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Registered Midwife
- Post-graduate Degree or equivalent experience in relevant field or obtained through personal or professional lived experience
Desirable
- Leadership/ management qualification
Skills
Essential
- Able to lead, influence and persuade colleagues through change
- Able to work collaboratively with staff at all levels across the Trust and with external stakeholders and committed to teamwork
- Able to motivate, empower and facilitate teams from different professional disciplines to be proactive
- Able to lead and manage teams
- Able to use excel for data input, analysis and producing graphs and reports, with proficient keyboard skills
Desirable
- To have participated in audit/research and development programmes
Experience
Essential
- Confident and competent in providing antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal midwifery care.
- Knowledgeable in the Saving Babies Lives Care bundle
- Understanding and application of the principles of professional accountability and confidentiality
- Demonstrates expert knowledge of CTG interpretation and intermittent auscultation
- Ability to recognise and analyse complex situations and or deviation from the normal and act upon it
- Experience of leadership including teaching and mentoring learners.
Desirable
- Experience of teaching in clinical and classroom settings
- Undertaking and evaluating quality improvement programmes
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Registered Midwife
- Post-graduate Degree or equivalent experience in relevant field or obtained through personal or professional lived experience
Desirable
- Leadership/ management qualification
Skills
Essential
- Able to lead, influence and persuade colleagues through change
- Able to work collaboratively with staff at all levels across the Trust and with external stakeholders and committed to teamwork
- Able to motivate, empower and facilitate teams from different professional disciplines to be proactive
- Able to lead and manage teams
- Able to use excel for data input, analysis and producing graphs and reports, with proficient keyboard skills
Desirable
- To have participated in audit/research and development programmes
Experience
Essential
- Confident and competent in providing antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal midwifery care.
- Knowledgeable in the Saving Babies Lives Care bundle
- Understanding and application of the principles of professional accountability and confidentiality
- Demonstrates expert knowledge of CTG interpretation and intermittent auscultation
- Ability to recognise and analyse complex situations and or deviation from the normal and act upon it
- Experience of leadership including teaching and mentoring learners.
Desirable
- Experience of teaching in clinical and classroom settings
- Undertaking and evaluating quality improvement programmes
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
