NursingNetUK

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

KEY DUTIES

• Act as an advocate for women and their families and make appropriate referral where necessary.
• Promote normality whilst providing antenatal, and intrapartum care, which is reflective of research-based evidence in an appropriate setting.
• Liaise with other appropriate multidisciplinary and organisations for effective collaborative care as appropriate.
• Promote and lead on the introduction of any new initiatives relating to fetal monitoring to ensure staff are assessing fetal wellbeing in the context of the women’s individual risk assessment inclusive of her health, pregnancy, gestation and stage of labour.
• Develop midwives competence in undertaking intermittent auscultation of the fetal heart in low risk women as per NICE guidelines.
• Support staff in enhancing their skills in reducing risk within clinical practice.
• Provide midwifery expertise, ensuring all staff both midwifery and medical are supported in their practice, including pre-registration and doctors in training.
• Communicate sensitive and complex information effectively and support the care pathway.
• Identify and offer appropriate services to women and babies who are high risk.
• Attend Divisional meetings and provide a summary report on clinical issues.
• Participate in ongoing work into the Stillbirth audit, working collaboratively with the audit leads within maternity to present the audit findings.
• Participate and undertake in the development of maternity guidelines. 

CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Maintain Professional Registration
• Adhere to relevant Code of Practice of Professional body
• Ensure that all midwives and obstetricians providing antenatal and intrapartum care undertake the trust approved CTG competency assessment (K2).
• In conjunction with the education team, provide enhanced teaching and additional support to staff who need to repeat the competency test in order to achieve and demonstrate the expected levels of knowledge, or who are identified as requiring further support through the risk management process.
• Support staff in clinical practice to consolidate clinical skills relating to fetal heart rate monitoring.
• To produce, 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 in all care settings.
• Lead weekly CTG workshops maintaining an electronic database to evidence attendance registers and ensure compliance to the mandatory requirement for midwives and obstetric staff.
• Disseminate learning that emerges from the workshops.
• Organise CTG masterclass on a monthly basis.
• Develop in conjunction with the Clinical Midwifery Managers, obstetric lead for delivery suite, Patient safety and risk manager, an audit form to be used for daily reviews of all emergency births in the previous 24 hours focusing on CTG interpretation and subsequent management of care.  Use findings of the case reviews for reflective practice sessions, to cascade and evidence learning from good practise and identify areas for development.
• Ensure staff are assessing fetal wellbeing in the context of women’s health, pregnancy gestation and stage of labour, by observing how handover is communicated at change of shifts, and midwife to shift leader, midwife to medic communication when referral for expert advice and reassurance is requested.
• Use every opportunity to provide positive feedback and identify and disseminate learning from good outcomes.
• Be visible and proactive on intrapartum areas, including community led care, triage and assessment, antenatal wards and/or lead discussion regarding fetal assessment, embed/promote ‘fresh eyes’ and ‘fresh ears’ approach with associated documentation evidenced.
• Ensure ongoing audit to monitor the improvements and subsequently maintained standards in fetal monitoring.
• Assist in the investigation of incidents pertaining to poor birth outcomes, implementing any recommendations arising from these investigations.
• Promote evidence-based practice throughout the maternity service.
• Support the development and implementation of the divisional governance plan relating to fetal monitoring.
• Work in conjunction with the midwifery management and education team towards achieving corporate standards as well as meeting the relevant criteria as described in the standards set by the Care Quality Commission and any other National or local performance frameworks.
• Identify problems, variations or areas of concern relating to clinical practise and liaise with the lead professionals to agree remedial action where appropriate and assist in the setting and maintaining of standards.
• Reporting to the Quality and Safety Matron and as part of the midwifery education team, work with the lead clinicians, senior midwives and specialists to ensure the implementation of the Saving Babies’ Lives Care Bundle v.2
• Always ensure that duties are carried out in a safe manner in order to maintain a high standard of midwifery practice for all women and their babies
• Being responsible for maintaining training and revalidation requirements.
• Being conversant with all publications and documentations issued by the NMC in relation to training and development.
• Adhere to provider Trust rules and clinical guidelines of the Trust and be aware of any changes that may affect midwifery practise.
• Maintain contemporaneous records in an accurate and legible manner.
• Being aware of all current safeguarding polices relevant to the provider Trust.
• Making appropriate judgements on a range of complex midwifery and safeguarding issues, which require assessing, analysing, investigation and action.
• Actively participating in clinical governance strategy, audit, and risk management.

ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Ensure the security and confidentiality of patient information is always maintained.
• Ensure the processes are in place to identify, collect and evaluate information in order to support clinical decision making.
• Undertake data collection/input effectively using the agreed systems. 

TEACHING & TRAINING RESPONSIBILITIES

• Ensure attendance at training as appropriate to the needs of the role.
• Maintain comprehensive training records of who has been trained in fetal monitoring, submitting this to the midwifery education team, and where appropriate provide exception reporting where there are concerns identified.
• Actively participate in local and corporate induction training with a lead role in provision of fetal heart rate training.
• Support the delivery of the departments approved fetal heart rate monitoring.
• Practise within the agreed policies and protocols of the named provider Trust within the LMS and adhere to the NMC Professional Code of Conduct, Standards and guidelines.
• Link the development of knowledge, ideas and work practise to the role of the midwife and the midwifery support worker roles. 

LINE MANAGEMENT/SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Supporting lead clinicians in the clinical area.
• Supporting clinical staff in their management/decision making, of fetal heart rate, monitoring in all clinical areas, both low and high risk.
• Take on a lead role in co-ordinating/supporting clinical areas in accordance with the needs of the service and in line with a band 7 midwifery role. 

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Work in a way which is efficient and effective and adds value to the provider Trust.
• Support budget holders by providing information as required. 

RESEARCH & AUDIT

• Work closely with the audit and guidelines midwife/team to implement changes in practise and measure the extent to which quality has been improved in fetal heart rate monitoring on a quarterly basis.
• Ongoing audit of educational initiatives related to the implementation and monitoring of action plans in order to achieve and maintain educational objectives.
• Provide regular written report of progress to local management team.
• Contribute effectively to evaluation studies.
• Present findings locally and nationally as requested, provide an in depth report for discussion at CM LMS meeting. 
• Produce action from Fetal Heart rate / CTG quality initiatives and programmes.
• To work in partnership with others to ensure continuous improvement and best practise.
• To identify opportunities for shared learning from incident investigation analysis.