The Nursing and Midwifery Council officially approved the #FutureMidwife standards on 3rd October. They will be formally published in January and be fully implemented by September 2021. These standards will ensure that midwives continue to have the knowledge and skills to be the lead caregivers for women and babies throughout their maternity journey.
News Archive
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a worldwide annual campaign taking place during October, involving thousands of organisations, to highlight the importance of breast awareness, education and research. The aim is to get as many people as possible involved in raising awareness and funds to help support life-saving research and life-changing support. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month do something great – make life-saving research happen by supporting wear it pink.
The Nursing Times has reported that nursing education in England became more racially diverse following the removal of the bursary, according to new analysis by the education regulator. In the first academic year following the controversial funding reform, the number of students from ethnic minority backgrounds starting a pre-registration nursing degree increased by 4% compared to the previous year. However, this rise was not enough to outstrip the 16% decline in white students seen over the same period, found the Office for Students (OfS).
Nursing in Practice reports that perinatal mental health has an increased prominence in the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) new proposed standards for ‘the next generation of midwives’. The NMC hopes its new standards will help ensure midwives have the right knowledge and skills to identify a woman’s mental health needs as early as possible, with perinatal mental health problems affecting up to 20% of women. The standards emphasise continuity of care, requiring midwives to provide ongoing midwifery care across all healthcare settings alongside other professionals while acting as an advocate for mother and baby. The proposed standards are up for approval by the NMC governing council on 3 October this year and would go into effect from 31 January 2020 for the next ten years.
Liberty’s Mother has released her EP ‘I Can Love You From Here’. She is sharing the song, with every penny made on this project going to Tommy’s the baby charity, with the wider aim to raise awareness about Baby Loss. Liberty died a very preventable death eight years ago and Liberty’s Mother is fighting to eradicate preventable stillbirths.
The Health Service Journal has reported that staff failing to act on abnormal fetal heartbeats during labour was the most common contributing factor in cases where babies were born with brain damage. These were then referred to NHS Resolution’s new early notification (EN) scheme. Analysis of the first 12 months of the scheme found issues with fetal heart monitoring were involved in almost 70 per cent of the 96 cases examined. The EN schemes aim is to halve the rate of stillbirth, neonatal death and brain injury by 2025. Before the scheme, the average length of time between an incident occurring and an award for compensation was 11.5 years.
The Guardian reports that privatisation of NHS care will be significantly curbed under confidential plans. The Guardian has obtained an NHS England document which summarises 22 key changes it believes will be included in an NHS reform bill due to be published next month. New proposals would remove the current requirement for local NHS bodies in England to put out to tender any contract worth more than £615,278. The requirement has contributed to a significant increase in outsourcing of NHS services.
Community groups collectively working together will make a bigger difference in Bognor Regis and surrounding areas, says Danny Dawes, who set up Grandad’s Front Room CIC (Community Interest Company) in 2016. He has spent three years working to help tackle numerous social issues in the area. The groups working together include Chichester’s Four Streets Project, founded by Donna Ockenden, which last month, saw a record high in the number of people sleeping rough in Chichester. This year, more than 750 homeless people have come through the doors of Grandad’s Front Room with the higher numbers appearing in the last few months.
The Guardian reports that the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth has fallen by more than a third since 2000, according to new UN figures, but the rate of decline remains way off track to meet global targets to cut maternal deaths. Figures published on Thursday show that in 2017 an estimated 295,000 women died from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, compared with 451,000 at the turn of the century. Globally, the maternal mortality ratio – the number of deaths per 100,000 live births – now stands at 211, compared with 342 in 2000.
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.
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.