Specialist Maternal Mental Health Midwife | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

An exciting opportunity has arisen within our Cheshire & Merseyside Maternal Mental Health Service for a specialist maternal mental health midwife to join the service. We are looking for midwives with relevant experience and a passion for supporting women and birthing people who have experienced trauma and/or loss in their reproductive journey.

Silver Birch Hubs is a joint collaboration bringing together midwifery and psychology to provide evidence based interventions as part of joint clinical pathways.

The role involves working in a multidisciplinary team alongside clinical psychologists, lead specialist midwife, psychological therapists, and peer support workers with lived experience of trauma and loss, to provide specialist midwifery knowledge and expertise in the team. You will be managing your own caseload and providing psychology informed midwifery interventions to women and birthing people in the service, as well as supporting training and upskilling of the workforces in the wider maternity, neonatal and local authority systems.

There will be daily contact with services users who have experienced losses (such as stillbirth, miscarriage, neonatal death, and loss through separation of mum and baby in the maternity setting by the family justice system), birth trauma, and extreme fear of child birth(Tokophobia).

The post holder will be required to work and travel across the Cheshire and Merseyside footprint, to provide both face to face and virtual appointments to service users and attend meetings.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Support, assist and advise women and birthing people experiencing moderate to severe impact on their mental health as a result of trauma or loss in their reproductive journey. This in addition
to the routine care provided by midwives, obstetricians, gynaecologists, neonatal teams, health visitors, for example working with women and the maternity system professionals to develop individual care plans and making referrals to additional specialist support where required.
Act as an advocate for women and birthing people to ensure they get the specialist mental health care they need.
Undertake some aspects of psychologically informed interventions such as mindfulness, cognitive behavioural work, and exposure work under the supervision of a qualified psychologist.
Formulate individualised, psychology informed birth plans in collaboration with women, birthing people, and their families.
Support preparation of women and birthing people who wish to access debriefs, birth reflection sessions, investigation outcomes and feedback meetings in cases of poor outcomes, including PMRT feedback and post-mortem results.
Liaise with mental health services, and other services and partner agencies to ensure that women
with moderate to severe mental illness are receiving active and effective care.

Provide care in a variety of settings, such as home, children's centres or other community settings working independently or in collaboration with the MMHS and other care providers.
Liaise with other services to improve service provision for women and birthing people suffering
from trauma related symptoms and PTSD, and their families, and promote integration of services.
Support and guide the maternity, neonatal and gynaecology systems with providing trauma informed care for women who have experienced a trauma or loss.
Promote care pathways for women with mental illness relating to trauma, tokophobia, perinatal loss, including separation of mum and baby by the family courts.
Act as a resource for all staff involved in maternity care (including obstetricians, midwives, student midwives and maternity support workers). Provide evidence-based advice, support, and
information with regards to the appropriate management and referral of women and birthing people with mental health problems and their families.

Participate in developing and coordinate training programmes for staff and participate in the induction of new staff.
Participate in training of midwives, obstetricians, health visitors, GP's and other agencies as required.
Attend pre-birth meetings, whether these are led by obstetricians and midwives or social care, to support colleagues in providing reports, and to help formulate a birth plan and a family support /child protection plan.
Provide a visible and accessible presence, acting as a professional role model by providing leadership and support within multidisciplinary and midwife teams.
Work with colleagues to ensure that women and their families receive appropriate information about mental health and illness in a sensitive way.
Support the implementation of guidelines by statutory and professional bodies.
Identify areas for research, audit, and development relevant to mental health. Initiate and participate in research and clinical audit programmes and encourage other midwives to do the same.
Provide a link between midwives, GP's health visitors, obstetricians, specialist mental health services and other agencies in relation to the care of pregnant women, birthing people, and women who have experienced trauma or loss in their reproductive journey with no upper limit to when the trauma or loss occurred.
Develop comprehensive care pathways for women, birthing people and families in active collaboration with the maternal mental health team and other providers of mental health services (e.g., GP's, Health visitors).
Acts as an effective role model and sets and maintains high standards midwifery and mental health care, reflecting evidence-based practice in self and team members.
Identifies areas for service improvement and work with the MMHS Leadership team to ensure that systems are developed that encourage the team to offer suggestions of how the service can
be improved.

Report adverse clinical and nonclinical incidents ensuring safety of mothers, babies and staff under the Health and Safety Act (1974).
Make an effective contribution to the implementation of an effective risk assessment process, ensuring high risk area are identified and highlighted to the Team Manager and appropriately
incorporated into the local risk register.
Manages complaints in line with local Complaints Policy.
Supports and assists the MMHS Leadership Team with patient and public involvement, complaints investigations, responses, and implementation of service changes, as necessary.
Maintain systems which focus on equity and diversity within the service and take into consideration and respect different ethnic, cultural, and religious beliefs within all aspects of care.
Have visible daily contact with staff, women, birthing people, and their families, and provide feedback about the Trust services, ensuring that concerns that are raised are dealt with quickly and efficiently, ensuring excellent and effective communication takes place.
Be proactive in seeking women and birthing peoples' views and ensure that feedback from women, birthing people and their families is valued and acted upon, and lessons disseminated, to enable changes in practice if they are necessary.
Signpost to Patient Advocacy Liaison Service (PALS), Chaplaincy and other services to support women, birthing people families and their carer.
Encourage all staff within the sphere of responsibility to take a proactive approach to the resolution of issues, which may give rise to dissatisfaction from women, their relatives, and carers,
ensuring effective and comparable resolutions to any concerns expressed.
To support development of health education/promotion strategies.
To develop robust written information for women, birthing people, and their families.
Develop own and others' knowledge and practice across professional and organisational boundaries.
To support the development of a training and development plan.
Abide by the The Code: Professional Standards of Practice and Behaviour for Nurses and Midwives
(2015). As a registered midwife, you are personally accountable for your practice.
Participate in the appraisal process and undertake annual appraisal for all staff for whom the post holder has line managerial responsibility.
Facilitate the development of other midwives within the area of responsibility ensuring appropriate succession planning arrangements are in place.
To ensure that induction packs and orientation programmes are in place for all new staff.
Provide visible leadership.
Ensure that there is optimal utilisation of resources.
Determine the effective use of physical and/or financial resources.
Support SPMMHS Leadership team in improving services in line with National policies and where appropriate, take a lead role on the midwifery issues related to the implementation of national
guidance applicable to sphere of responsibility.