Hidden Gem: Northampton project to reduce midwifery stress and work unhappiness

 "Midwives" is the magazine of the Royal College of Midwives and is one of the dreariest reads imaginable.  It manages to kill all the wonders and glories of midwifery and birth stone dead in every issue.  The articles are formulaic, conservative, and firmly adherent to the current UK NHS medicalised model of birth, whilst making all the usual nods to political correctness.

November 2020's issue has 50 pages.  Tucked at the very back on pages 45 to 48 is one of the rare articles worth reading. Called "A Problem Shared" and written by Tara Pauley (currently deputy Head of Midwifery at The Rosie Hospital in Cambridge) and Matt Kendall, it describes a project the authors led at Northampton General Hospital maternity unit to reduce midwives' stress and unhappiness.

The project resulted from Professor Billie Hunter and team's report on the Work Health and Emotional Lives of Midwives (WHELM) which clearly showed that UK midwives experienced significantly higher levels of work-related stress, anxiety and depression than midwives in other participating countries.

https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/2924/work-health-and-emotional-lives-of-midwives-in-the-united-kingdom-the-uk-whelm-study.pdf

What is heartening about this article is that it shows a real effort in one unit to take the WHELM findings seriously (as they should be taken) and do something about it.  The project was a creative and caring initiative that may well have a limited shelf life before being quietly forgotten, but it is one of those efforts that does shift culture and make a difference for whatever period it survives.  Tara and Matt used the Pathway to Excellence model to promote a "positive practice environment".  Of course other models are available, but the point is that managers need to invest money, time and effort into improving the maternity workplace culture.  This is something that needs care and attention in each and every unit if UK midwifery is to retain its precious midwives.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/nursingmidwifery/shared-governance-and-collective-leadership/nursing-midwifery-excellence/

Any model is only as good as the people adopting and using it and leading its usage, but it is critical that all those who care about the workplace environment and deplore what the WHELM study found try to do something to alleviate the misery of too many UK midwives.  UM hopes that some of the gains in Northampton described in the article are ongoing or that, if they are not, that the project is revisited and revised.