The Maternity Unit at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals provides care in pregnancy, labour, and following birth, for women who chose to have their care with us. We currently have approximately 2500 babies born a year.
We pride ourselves on having a kind and supportive working culture where our colleagues become our work family.
Roles
At Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS, we have a range of different roles within the unit who all have their part to play in the care of our women and their families.
Teamwork and workplace culture are high on our agenda. We endeavour to ensure all staff are treated with respect and everyone has a voice.
There are many different roles to explore. On a typical shift we have midwives, health care assistants, maternity support workers, and midwifery health trainers and student midwives. All colleagues work both days and nights, usually 11.5-hour shifts.
We work alongside our obstetric, anaesthetic, and neonatal colleagues to ensure our women and families receive optimal care.
We have some truly exciting opportunities within our maternity services. Working with us, you will work in an environment where you are able to make the most of your skills whilst growing professionally along the way.
We have a team of specialist midwives who are responsible for their own area of speciality.
These include perinatal mental health, antenatal & newborn screening, bereavement, medical co-morbidities/diabetes, practice development, preceptorship, retention, digital, public health, fetal monitoring, governance, and safeguarding midwives.
Our senior leadership team consists of the Director of Midwifery, Head of Midwifery and Maternity Matrons.
Their responsibilities include leading and managing the strategic and operational delivery of services to ensure the unit deliveries safe, high quality, personalised care.
The role of the midwife is to provide safe, skilled, respectful, and compassionate care to women and their families. It is a demanding, challenging, and rewarding role where no two days are ever the same.
Midwives are passionate about providing the best possible evidence-based care.
Midwife means ‘with woman’. Therefore, it is only natural for us to put a woman’s needs and her safety at the heart of everything we do.
Midwives are in the privileged position to offer personalised care to women. Involving them in decision making around their care empowers women and ensures they are listened to. Ensuring the woman has the right information to be able to make an informed choice about her care is a huge part of the role.
Developing a relationship with the woman and her family is vital to making this happen.
It is key is that all women receive optimum care, irrespective of their backgrounds, race, cultures, and diversity.
The wonder of birth never leaves a midwife no matter how long you have been in the role.
Midwives are constantly on a journey to learn and update our practice following guidelines and policies to maintain safety and best practice for our women.
A big part of the role is health education so maintaining up to date practice and delivering relevant information to women and their families is always at the forefront of everything we do.
Midwives work in many different areas of maternity. We have staff on community, delivery suite, triage, and the antenatal/postnatal ward.
There are many opportunities for professional development. Continuous practice development is crucial in a role such as this as midwifery is an ever-evolving career.
As a Team we are supportive to each other, always striving to maintain psychological safety in the workplace.
We want everyone to feel a sense of belonging when working on our unit and provide a nurturing environment for staff to develop and flourish in their roles.
Upon qualifying a midwife works in a band 5 role and follows a preceptorship package which is designed to offer structured support during the transition from student to midwife.
This ensures the newly qualified midwife can develop their confidence as an autonomous practitioner, refine their skills, knowledge and values whilst continuing their lifelong learning journey. LINK TO PRECEPTORSHIP.
To work as a Health Care Assistant (HCA) on the maternity unit you need to be passionate about providing optimum care to the women and their families. It is a very varied role with plenty of opportunities to learn and perform new skills.
In this role staff commence their post on a band 2 HCA and then progress to a band 3 Maternity Support Worker (MSW).
On a day-to-day basis our HCA’s/MSW’s are responsible for ensuring the clinical areas are clean and stocked up ready for admissions. You will work as part of the team, alongside our midwives, assisting women with daily cares and providing support to the women with their newborn babies.
You will follow a ‘Competency Passport’ to gain skills and knowledge to help you progress into the MSW role. You will receive training on how to perform observations such as blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and urinalysis. Alongside this you will learn how to take bloods, and blood sugars from both mum and baby.
Other responsibilities include running Glucose Tolerance Test and Newborn Screening Blood Test clinics.
Our HCA’s/MSW’s work in all areas within the maternity unit, rotating around similar to our rotational midwives.
On our postnatal ward you will support our mums with their feeding choice ensuring you give appropriate support and up to date advice.
All care is digitally documented in real time to ensure accurate record keeping is maintained.
This role is community based to allow our Health Trainers to become more integrated into the neighbourhoods they work in.
All our MHT’S are paid at a band 3, they are responsible for ensuring all new pregnancy referrals, for women wanting to birth at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, are actioned and sent to the midwife responsible for that women’s care.
They invite all newly pregnant women and their partners to a ‘1st stage’ appointment to discuss health promotion topics such as vitamins, diet, exercise, smoking, and breast feeding. This session takes place between 7-10 weeks pregnant, so advice is then able to be given and acted upon early pregnancy.
Later in pregnancy they are involved in delivering Parentcraft classes to discuss infant feeding, safe sleeping, and ICON (discussing coping methods to deal with infant crying).
This role also includes running group smoking cessation classes, auditing smoking, skin to skin and breast-feeding rates.
To become a midwife, you will need a midwifery degree. This can be gained either through university or through an apprenticeship route.
Universities require GSCE level 4 or above in maths, English, and a science.
You will require 120 UCAS points in health-related subjects to join a midwifery degree course.
Direct entry students will study for 3 years. The course is 50% university/50% part placement in all areas of maternity.
On this route you will be eligible to apply to Student Finance England for tuition fees.
There is a 20-month degree course available in some universities for adult nurses wishing to become midwives.
On this route you will get paid at a band 5 (as you already have a nursing degree).
Apprenticeships are a new, up and coming, way to exciting to gain a midwifery degree.
If you chose to train at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS, you will be supported by our PEF midwife (Practice Education Facilitator) and our qualified midwives assessor’s whom you will work alongside during your placements.
The unit has a 9 bedded Delivery Suite with a dedicated and passionate team providing care in labour. Alongside this is our 4 bedded Birthing Unit, with 2 pool rooms for our low-risk women who wish to use the facilities available there.
Our postnatal/antenatal ward has 22 beds and cots.
We currently employ 134 midwives who provide care for women from Blackpool and the surrounding areas.
