Consultant Midwife for Public Health and Education

at  Whittington Health NHS Trust

The Consultant Midwife for Public Health and Education has a specific role in leading on initiatives and developing strategies to promote optimum health and well-being for women in the preconception, antenatal and postnatal period. She/He will deliver innovative, evidenced based, high quality care, working with multiagency partners, across the hospital and community settings. Through partnership working the consultant midwife will seek to reduce health inequalities through improving maternal and child health, ensuring a healthy start in life.
Central to all you do will be the drive to improve women’s experience and the development of care pathways that truly have the woman at the centre of care and improve continuity of care and carer.
She/he will support and encourage midwives view pregnancy and birth within the context of a social model of health and wellness including the social, psychological and emotional needs of women and their families and to develop a strong understanding of professional accountability and autonomy within midwives and other maternity care staff.
The post holder will work in clinical practice for 50% of the time.
She/he will develop educational and research programmes and contribute to the professional body of knowledge specific to this role through research, audit and evaluation; and contribute to formal teaching for pre and post registration students, curriculum planning and appropriate learning outcomes for students at Middlesex University.

There are four distinct role functions of the midwife consultant:

• Expert practice
• Professional leadership and consultancy
• Education, training and professional development
• Research, audit and evaluation, practice and service development

THE CONSULTANT MIDWIFE WILL:

• Provide clinical leadership; facilitate practitioners to improve their practice and maintain competence
• Support and guide the team
• Actively contribute to strategic planning of services
• Lead the implementation of midwifery research and practice to enhance the body of midwifery knowledge
• Actively participate in clinical audit and the development of evidence-based clinical standards of care. Ensure that recommendations from the National policy documents that relate to women and children’s well-being, in particular Single Delivery Plan and guidance from NICE and The Royal Colleges are incorporated into local practice.
• Audit practice and service; evaluate maternity care and service provision and develop appropriate service to meet the needs of diverse groups [populations]
• Shares her [his] expertise and acts as a resource both internally and externally with health and social care
  Please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification for the details of the main duties.
  Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.
  This post is designed to strengthen the midwifery contribution to the public health agenda for women and families in Islington, Haringey and others outside these Boroughs who choose Whittington Health for their maternity care. Specifically, setting in place strategies and frameworks to address inequalities in health and access to health care for vulnerable women. The post holder will provide clinical leadership; advice and support to all colleagues providing midwifery care in primary and secondary care settings. S/he will be an expert practitioner and source of expertise for the multi-professional and organisational team involved in providing health care for pregnant women from vulnerable groups.
  The Midwife Consultant for Public Health and Education will contribute some time to midwifery clinical practice. The expectations of this post will be met through professional leadership, consultancy, education and training, research, audit and evaluation, practice and service development. The focus of the role is to use midwifery expertise to define the public health role of the midwife, incorporating pre-conception advice, health promotion, services to support pregnant teenagers, smoking cessation, the effects and implications of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, breastfeeding rates, parenting skills, postnatal examination, mental health, child protection and women’s health. In addition, the Midwife Consultant will lead the strategy for continuity of care for vulnerable women and may hold a small personal caseload to whom she/he will provide continuity of care/carer.
  Please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification for the details and main responsibilities

• Expert practice
• Professional leadership and consultancy
• Education, training and professional development
• Research, audit and evaluation, practice and service developmen