I first became interested in being midwife after undertaking some work experience at a local antenatal class where I felt a real privilege being involved with women as they adjusted to becoming mothers. After working as a community maternity support worker, I undertook my undergraduate Midwifery degree at Southampton University and had the opportunity to travel to Thailand and work alongside midwives there as part of my elective placement. When I qualified, I stayed and worked in Southampton, carrying out my preceptorship programme. I enjoyed working in the community, at the birth centres but predominantly focused on developing my high risk labour ward care caring for complex women and babies.
Whilst working clinically, I started working towards a PhD at Bournemouth University, researching how digitalised education services impact on women’s experiences of the latent phase of labour. I am currently finalising my data collection and writing my thesis in this research project and hope the skills I have gained whilst undertaking my doctorate will be of use in my future career.
Alongside this, I attended the University of West England to undertake the Professional Midwifery Advocate (PMA) course as I am really passionate about supporting other midwives in our job. In my PMA role, I became very involved with supporting midwives that had been involved in difficult incidents. From here, I moved to Basingstoke hospital to specialise in incident investigation and work in safety and risk; supporting midwives through these processes remained very important to me. I am a great believer that investigating incidents in practice is a good way of ensuring services are continuously improved, minimising risks for women, families and staff in the future.
It was this that led me to apply to Frimley Park Hospital where I am working as the Patient Safety Lead midwife. My role here continues to focus on incident management and looking at ways to make safety improvements to maternity services. I have been so very welcomed into the Trust and feel settled in my new role amongst the great team. The staff here are hardworking and super friendly and I am so pleased I have made the move to this hospital. Frimley Park hospital offers a good environment for learning and development, both for newly qualified and existing midwives as they value all aspects of midwifery, both clinically and those in specialist roles. As a military hospital, I have found coming to this Trust exciting and I feel I am continuing to learn every day.
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