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Job summary

Main area
Midwifery
Grade
Band 8a
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Manager on call)
Job ref
323-NM2551-MH
Employer
Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
St Peter's Hospital
Town
Chertsey
Salary
£55,877 - £62,626 pa inc. HCAS
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
25/05/2025 23:59

Employer heading

Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust logo

Lead Midwife - Education, Recruitment and Retention

Band 8a

Job overview

Are you an experienced registered midwife with a passion for promoting and delivering excellent education for maternity services and recruitment and retention?

If so we have an exciting opportunity to join our midwifery senior team as the Lead Midwife-Education, Recruitment and Retention.

·       The postholder will be the strategic and operational lead for education for the maternity service workforce as well as the recruitment and retention lead for the nursing and midwifery workforce. Through strong leadership and effective management the post holder will promote and deliver excellence whilst maintaining and continually improving clinical standards and our recruitment and retention rate.

Main duties of the job

Recruitment and retention

  • Reporting and Workforce Planning – work with the Head of Midwifery/to develop a workforce plan for both registered and support staff.
  • Ensure full Induction and support for staff in their first year is fully planned, supported and monitored.
  • Lead on recruitment plan and providing the organisation with high quality reporting in respect of the recruitment effort.
  • Lead for international recruitment.
  • Support recruitment efforts to the Trust’s Staff Bank with the aim of reducing reliance on agency workers and assuring quality of Bank Workers.
  • Retention – work with midwifery colleagues to ensure that nursing and midwifery turnover is addressed and key staff are retained.

Workforce development

  • The postholder will be responsible for motivating and engaging the maternity staff workforce. Aiming to support the workforce in a holistic fashion targeting wellbeing, skills and career development and organisational loyalty.
  • Work closely with the senior midwifery team to reduce vacancy rates via recruitment and retention.
  • Support the PMA team to provide psychological support sessions for staff.

Education

  • The postholder will be responsible for leading on the development and implementation of the Maternity Education Strategy that supports training needs analysis for midwives and registered and non registered support staff.

Working for our organisation

Ashford and St. Peters Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust serves a population of more than 410,000 people living in North-West Surrey, parts of Hounslow and beyond.

Over 3,700 highly trained doctors, nurses, midwives, therapists, healthcare scientists and other support staff make up our workforce, providing a wide range of services across our two hospital sites, Ashford, Surrey and St Peter's, Chertsey, Surrey.

We also run many specialist clinics in the community and local community hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

Our vision is to be one of the best healthcare Trusts in the country. There has never been a better time to join us in the NHS at ASPH. We are committed to providing continuous professional development and flexibility to shape our workforce around our patient care.

We are expanding our theatres at Ashford Hospital and moving towards this becoming our dedicated elective centre. We want to create a state-of-the-art centre for excellence for planned surgical procedures.

We can offer you the full range of NHS benefits/discounts and in addition:

  • Excellent pension scheme and annual leave entitlement
  • On-site Nurseries
  • On-site staff cafes
  • On-site parking
  • Support in career development
  • Salary Sacrifice schemes including wage stream, lease cars, Cycle to Work schemes and home electronics

Adverts may close early, so applicants are encouraged to submit an application as soon as possible.

For more information about a career at ASPH please visit:
www.asph-careers.org

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Recruitment and Retention

  • To plan and manage full recruitment campaigns through the end-to-end process in response to Trust/divisional needs
  • Work closely with all staff and senior managers on effective recruitment strategies to reduce both midwifery and maternity support and care assistant vacancy rates.
  • To co-ordinate the recruitment process, including advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and appointment processes that keep vacancies to the shortest time possible in conjunction with the Matrons, area leads and CPE team
  • To plan and provide opportunities for informal visits for potential recruits.
  • Ensure new staff are supported, Inducted and have regular meetings to understand their experience and feed this back into the Unit.
  • Engage with the current and recently departed workforce as well as staff survey data (National Staff Survey, Exit, Peakon) to understand key local retention issues and the proposed response to identified issues
  • Develop and implement an action plan based on staff survey results to support wellbeing and job satisfaction for new recruits and existing employees.
  • Visible presence in the unit with walkrounds to see new staff in practice and understand their experience.
  • Ensure provision of psychological safety and support sessions for staff.
  •  Work with central team to lead on international recruitment drive within Maternity

·       Will work in partnership with link Universities and HEE to ensure NMC standards for education and development and scope of practice are met         

 

Managerial Role

·       To line manage the clinical practice education team, learning environment lead and Digital Lead Midwife to ensure team members are supported to lead on their respective workstreams.

  • To lead and participate, with the senior midwifery team in the recruitment and selection of staff as appropriate.
  • To participate in the Senior Midwifery manager on call rota.
  • To act up for clinical team leaders where necessary.
  • Lead and Participate in the maternity induction programme midwives and support staff ensuring staff have a lead contact during the onboarding and induction process.
  • To liaise with receiving wards/units/departments to ensure the arrival process is seamless and as positive as possible
  • Update and report on compliance with maternity training and competency assessments.
  • Ensure lessons from serious incidents, audits, complaints and PALS enquiries are incorporated into maternity induction.
  • Ensure training is responsive to local and national agenda.
  • Ensure seamless support for students ensuring a high conversion rate from student to application for a role.
  • Representing Trust in relevant workforce forums with local and external stakeholders.

 

 

Education

 

·       Lead and develop the maternity education strategy to facilitate the personal and professional development of new staff.  This involves identifying training and development needs of both registered and non –registered staff, providing suitable development opportunities and evaluating development actions in accordance with the Trust’s appraisal and training procedures.

·       To lead on the program of  in-service training education and development of staff.

·       To be responsible for the advanced clinical support and development of midwives working in the hospital and community settings, working alongside midwives and teams who may be suffering signs of burn out or with high vacancy rates.

·       Provide/organise mentorship, and coaching to individuals to support development.

·       To work flexibly across the maternity services to advance clinical midwifery standards and integrate evidence based practice.

·       Work closely with the Senior Midwifery team and the Senior Nurse for Education to facilitate commissioning of appropriate and relevant education courses from internal and external providers.

·       Based on widely published research, and in collaboration with the midwifery education team, and senior midwifery team develop a retention strategy with the express aim of reducing Band 5 and 6 midwife and MSW turnover.

·       To attend and contribute to multi-disciplinary clinical, mortality and morbidity meetings and to establish ongoing training needs.

·       Contributes to the Trust’s Workforce transformation and recruitment and retention meetings and supports relevant reporting requirements in collaboration with the Head of Midwifery

·       Provide pastoral care for new starters, particularly International and Return to Practice Midwives, and existing staff within the scope of the role.

·       Participate in development and promotion of a culture which is supportive and works within the A-EQUIP model parameters.

·       Ensure that the provision of education and training meets the needs of the maternity service and facilitates the provision of the right level of competent practitioners, delivering safe, evidence-based care within the Trust.

·       Ensure that the required compliance regarding training standards within the key areas set out in the Core Competency Framework, Maternity Incentive Scheme and the Maternity and Neonatal three-year plan are met.

·       To lead the development of maternity training and education within the division, exploring new ways of working to support modernisation and achievement of key targets.

·       Represent ASPH Maternity Education on divisional, trust, regional and national education forums.

·       Ensure systems are in place to ensure all substantive and temporary staff are inducted into the Trust/department in accordance with the Trust’s and department’s induction programme.

·       Support the Head of Midwifery on workforce changes/service re-design in line with local and national agenda; contribute to operational policy change and consultation processes and working with the teams to implement and embed change and service re-design

 

 

Professional Role

 

                To act as role model and leader for the professional and clinical development of midwifery staff and to promote excellence within and outside the maternity service.

                To ensure that the highest possible standard of care is maintained at all times in accordance with the NMC Midwives Rules & Standards.

                To maintain effective working relationships within the maternity services and to have a role in team building within the teams.

                Lead on Trust values and Just Culture through all new staff recruitment and inductions

Person specification

Education

Essential criteria
  • Registered midwife
  • Mentorship or equivalent
  • Masters degree or working towards
Desirable criteria
  • Leadership or management qualification
  • PMA qualification
  • Coaching qualification

Experience

Essential criteria
  • • Well rounded clinical experience and understanding current status of Midwifery education and recruitment issues
  • • Education experience
  • • Recruitment and retention experience
Desirable criteria
  • • Experience in report writing and analysing data
  • • Experience of multi-disciplinary working

Employer certification / accreditation badges

NHS Pastoral Care Quality AwardVeteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleAge positiveImproving working livesArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident committedStep into health

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Patience Chandiwana
Job title
Head of Midwifery
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07745209363
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