Project 4: Experiences of midwives in a specialist role that supports other midwives to stay in their profession
Background
Midwives are a very important part of the maternity team, and having too few midwives can make maternity care lower quality and less safe for mothers and babies. There is a widespread shortage of midwives in NHS maternity services in England, partly caused by high numbers of midwives leaving their jobs. To address this loss of trained and experienced midwives, in 2022 the Department of Health funded all maternity services to have a new 'retention midwife' role whose job includes supporting midwives to stay in the profession. There has not yet been any research to find out how these roles are working across England.
Aims and Objectives
We will explore the experiences of retention midwives in England. We will answer three questions:
- How does role of retention midwife work in practice in NHS Trusts in England?
- How do retention midwives experience their role and responsibilities?
- What do retention midwives think about the difference they make to other midwives?
Methods
We will interview about 25 retention midwives. We will choose people who work in different parts of England. We will analyse these interviews to look for things that are the same about people's experiences and things that are different.
Policy Relevance and Dissemination
The study will provide important information on the experiences of retention midwives and will describe how these roles are developing. We will make recommendations about how these roles can be used in the future to support other midwives to stay in their profession.
This information will be shared will people who make decisions about government policy, midwives' organisations, and NHS staff who manage maternity units. We will publish the results in an academic journal that is available to the general public without charge. We will also publish a short summary for policy makers and health professionals.
Team
Principal Investigator: Professor Fiona Alderdice
Team members: Dr Jenny McLeish, Professor Julia Sanders, Professor Sara Kenyon
Contact: jenny.mcleish@npeu.ox.ac.uk
