Nursing Notes reported how almost half of student midwives are considering quitting their training over money worries. A survey by the Royal College of Midwives found the average debt for graduate midwives is £41k with some students graduating with debts totalling an astonishing £100,000. The RCM has described the findings as ‘worrying’ for the future of the midwifery profession. The survey of the RCM’s student membership – asked questions around their current financial situation, levels of debt accrued to become a midwife and the impact of the removal of the NHS bursary in England.
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Maternity services in Guernsey are now meeting “excellent standards”, independent assessors say, following controversy over baby deaths. The “blue” designation from Scape (Safe, Clean and Personal Everytime) comes after three years of inspections. The audit looked at a variety of care criteria including environment, leadership and safety on the ward. Questions about care on the island were first raised in a 2014 in a report by the NMC.
The Royal College of Nursing has launched a campaign which focuses on driving efforts to address the nursing workforce crisis. Responding to the campaign, Andrea Sutcliffe, chief executive and registrar at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, said the RCN’s analysis echoed some of the NMC’s own findings.
Tommy’s new campaign, Tell Me Why, calls for more research into the causes of loss and premature birth. 7 out of 10 parents who lose a baby during pregnancy or have a premature birth are not told what went wrong. The research carried out by Tommy’s into miscarriage is entirely dedicated to finding out why it happens and how to prevent it. In more than half of stillbirths parents are not given a reason for their babies death as doctors simply do not know why. Premature birth is the biggest killer of newborn babies in the UK and Tommy’s is devoted to predicting and preventing it.
Liberty’s Mother is fighting to eradicate all preventable stillbirths, thousands a year, since the very preventable death of her daughter Liberty, 8 years ago. She is releasing the song ‘I Can Love You From Here’. It is an uplifting and hopeful song about love’s triumph over grief. She is sharing the song and helping to raise awareness of Baby Loss and supporting the brilliant charities, Tommy’s and Sands UK.
To order and support this important cause just visit: https://biglink.to/libertysmother
A network of organisations in Chichester is being set up to support homeless people. Figures from homeless charity the Four Streets Project fed a total of 666 people in August, more than three times the amount fed in March of this year. The month-on-month rise has been described as ‘very significant’ by the charity’s founder Donna Ockenden. She said: “We are so concerned about the continued increase of the numbers of homeless and vulnerable people in Chichester. Going forward we will be sharing these figures with Chichester District Council and Chichester City Council.
Donna also announced that the charity would be working with Grandad’s Front Room CIC in Bognor Regis and with Canon Mark Payne at St Pancras Church.
A report into the deaths of five women whose maternity care was overseen by the same hospital trust has found “best practice” was not always followed. The patients at the centre of the probe into Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust were deemed high-risk. The trust said while there was no evidence the deaths were preventable, it was working to improve services. External experts in childbirth and midwifery reviewed the women’s cases in conjunction with the trust, although the trust, and not the independent parties published the report.
Media reports that chronic staff shortages have been blamed for the 922,210 days lost to stress, anxiety, depression and other psychiatric illnesses from July 2018 to March this year in England – a quarter of all sick days taken by nurses, according to NHS Digital figures. NHS Employers Chief Executive Danny Mortimer said stress sickness levels were “of concern,” admitting unfilled vacancies placed “additional strain on those trying to fill the gaps”. He added: “One of the key ways to overcome this is to focus on recruitment and retention. We need a commitment from the Government to invest, particularly in areas of greatest shortage.”
The Guardian reports the lack of GPs is so acute that ministers must boost the numbers of medics who train to be family doctors to 5,000 a year, because the NHS workforce has “shrunk sharply.” This comes from chairman of the Royal College of GPs, Professor Stokes Lampard. The chair urged the government to increase the number of trainees in England from 3,500 to 5,000 as soon as possible to relieve the strain on surgeries and burnout that are pushing so many to quit.
The Guardian reports that a quarter of students quit nursing degrees before the end of the course. Of 16,544 UK nursing students at 55 universities, 4,027 left their courses early or suspended their studies. The Royal College of Nursing warned that students were being put off by bad experiences on clinical placements, as well as by financial difficulties and academic pressures. The NHS faced a shortage of tens of thousands of nurses. Compared to the 2006 figure, the attrition rate remains the same.
The Circulation Foundation strives to highlight and promote awareness for vascular disease to the general public. Vascular disease is the collective term for diseases of the arteries, veins and lymphatics. Every part of the body to which blood flows can be affected by it. It’s as common as cancer and heart disease and accounts for 40% of deaths in the UK, many of which are preventable. Vascular disease awareness month is this September.
For more than 10 years, Brook has been supporting FPA’s Sexual Health Week and the theme for 2019 is sex, relationships and disability. Brook believes that every young person should have equal access to quality relationships and sex education, sexual health services and wellbeing support. Sex and disability simply isn’t talked about enough and this means that lots of young people are missing out on valuable education, information and support.