My working life ... Midwife

Rachel Mavers is a team leader community midwife and supervisor of midwives at the Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust. Her role involves leading a team of eight midwives supporting pregnant women outside the hospital, supervising ten midwives at the trust, and caring for women before, during and after birth.

'My typical day is a mixture of antenatal or postnatal appointments in women's homes or GP surgeries, or delivering babies at home births. I don't deliver babies in the hospital any more.

'A midwife's role begins with a pregnancy. The first meeting we have with a mother-to-be is an information-gathering exercise. For about an hour and a half, we discuss their medical and obstetrics history, and assess whether they will need any referrals. We take routine screening blood tests and give health and diet advice.

'We follow the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines for meetings and see every lady at 16 weeks, at their 20-week scan, and about ten more times after that depending on whether it's their first baby or not.

'We're very much involved in supporting social problems. There may be domestic violence issues or English may not be their main language. If we ourselves can't help, we'll refer or signpost.

'Our shifts run from 8:30am to 4:30pm, but as a community midwife you never really switch off. A typical caseload is 100 women. We give out mobile numbers of all the midwives in the team so a woman can always call someone. One midwife covers the night shift up to 8:30am.

'There's a lot of paperwork. It's important to juggle that so the woman feels she's your primary concern. But the way litigation is nowadays, you need to record the care you're providing. We do a lot of data sharing with the clinical commissioning groups that hold hospital budgets.

'When it comes to the birth, we're trying to encourage low-risk women to have home births. This means we can provide one-to-one support and they'll usually know the midwife. If they have to have a hospital birth, we hand them over to our colleagues there.

'We only refer to a doctor during the birth if there's a problem. Doctors would deal with caesarean sections, forceps, or ventouse births - anything that needs extra support.

'After the birth, we visit the woman for up to four weeks or as many times as necessary. We help with breastfeeding or any birth wounds, support them through emotional changes, and can diagnose medical problems.

'As the team leader, I oversee my team's HR and management issues. I recently qualified as a supervisor of midwives.

'Midwives need to be good communicators and have a warm personality. The practical skills, such as knowing what to do medically, comes from your training.'

CV

Qualifications

Diploma of Midwifery - 1998

Local Supervising Authority supervisor of midwives qualification - 2012

Safeguarding and domestic violence awareness

Employment history

1995-1998: Trainee at Edge Hill University, Lancashire and Fazakerley Hospital (now part of Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)

1998-1999: Midwife at Arrowe Park Hospital, Wirral

1999 to present: Team midwife at Fazakerley Hospital - shifts in the hospital and the community.

The department is now called the Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust

2004: Community midwife

2013 to present: Supervisor of midwives

TRAINING

All midwives have to complete a full-time, three-year degree course in midwifery. Minimum entry requirements differ between universities. Competition for places is fierce because the number of approved degree programmes is set by the NHS.

Half of the degree content is clinical training, during which students are supported by a qualified midwife. This could take place in community and hospital settings, including antenatal clinics and wards, labour wards, postnatal wards and neonatal care.

Qualified nurses can complete a shorter, full-time course of 78 weeks.

After qualifying, midwives must register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) before they begin work. Midwives are required to re-register with the NMC every three years. They must demonstrate completing 450 hours of registered practice within those years and 35 hours of learning activity.

The annual starting salary for an NHS midwife is just more than £21,000. Midwives progress through pay bands and could earn up £80,000 a year as a senior manager or midwife consultant. Midwives can also work independently and for private hospitals.

Useful websites

• Prospects, www.prospects.ac.uk/midwife_job_description.htm
• NHS careers, www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/ explore-by-career/midwifery/training-to-be-a-midwife
• Nursing and Midwifery Council, a regulatory body for the sector, www.nmc-uk.org
• The Royal College of Midwives, professional organisation and trade union, www.rcm.org.uk.