Category / REF Subjects

Latest HSC paper in Birth

Publishing

The international journal Birth published our latest paper:

Whitford, H., Entwistle V.A., van Teijlingen, E., Aitchison, P., Davidson, T., Humphrey, T., Tucker, J. (2014) Use of a birth plan within woman-held maternity records: A qualitative study with women and staff in northeast Scotland, Birth (Epub ahead of print).

The co-authors of BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen are affiliated with a wide-range of Scottish institutions: the University of Dundee; the University of Aberdeen, the University of Stirling, the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and NHS Grampian, Aberdeen.

 

This latest paper considers the use of a birth plan section within a national woman-held maternity record.  Unlike England, Scotland has a national women-held maternity record. In Poole, for example, a midwife needs to complete another maternity record for women who want to deliver in the Poole area than those who want to delivery in Bournemouth Hospital and another form for those might want to go to the New Forest Birth Centre, and again another one for the Dorchester area.   In Scotland a pregnant women receiving antenatal care in one health area and delivering in another can take her same record/notes along.  As midwives (and other staff) only have to be familiar with one set of records, this reduces the chance of errors and avoiding duplication.

This qualitative study comprised interviews with women and maternity service staff in Northeast Scotland. In our study staff and women were generally positive about the provision of the birth plan section within the record. Perceived benefits included the opportunity to highlight preferences, enhance communication, stimulate discussions and address anxieties. However, some women were unaware of the opportunity or could not access the support they needed from staff to discuss or be confident about their options. Some were reluctant to plan too much. Staff recognised the need to support women with birth plan completion but noted practical challenges to this.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Delivering healthcare in prisons

PG research, Research Ethics

A special event has been arranged at BU that will focus on health care within prisons. The session to be held on 28th May will be led by Jane Senior from the University of Manchester. Jane is a clinician-researcher and Research Project Manager for the Offender Health Research Network. Jane is a qualified mental health nurse with over 20 years of post qualification experience of working in prison and secure mental health settings.

Jane’s session will be of great value to anyone :

  • thinking about undertaking research within UK prisons
  • wanting to know more about health care delivery in prisons
  • thinking of working with or in a prison health care team

During the session Jane will outline findings from her recent prison research projects. These include studies into how to manage the health and wellbeing of older prisoners and her recent work in developing the Older Prisoner Health and Social Care Assessment and Plan (OHSCAP). She will also highlight some of the specific issues that can arise when undertaking research within a prison environment.

Staff and students are welcome to attend the session. If you would like to attend please email Holly Crossen-White (hcrossen@Bournemouth.ac.uk).

HSC paper cited over hundred times in Scopus

Publishing

The academic publisher Elsevier alerted us today that our paper has been cited for the 101st time in Scopus.  The paper ‘Factors affecting the utilization of antenatal care in developing countries: Systematic review of the literature’ was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.  The paper was part of the first author’s Ph.D. research into maternity care in Nepal.

This paper is one of the four outputs submitted to the UK REF for both Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as part of the Bournemouth University submission and for Dr. Padam Simkhada as part of the University of Sheffield submission.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH, School of Health & Social Care

Could new framework take pressure off businesses who have to deal with privacy compliance?

 

 

The next Cyber Security seminar will be on:

‘Legal – URN (User Requirements Notation) Framework for Privacy Compliance’

Tuesday, 13th May

Coyne Lecture Theatre, Talbot Campus

4pm -5pm.

 

Bournemouth University is delighted to welcome Dr. Sepideh Ghanavati from CRP Henri Tudor, who will be visiting on the 13thMay to present an overview of the Legal-URN framework, which includes compliance analysis techniques and provides guidelines to manage multiple regulations at the same time.

The number of regulations an organisation needs to comply with has been increasing, and the pressure is building for them to ensure that their business processes are aligned with these regulations. However, because of the complexity and intended vagueness of regulations in general, it is not possible to treat them the same way as other types of requirements.

The cost of being non-compliant can also be fairly high; non-compliance can cause crucial harm to organisations, who may incur financial penalties or loss of reputation. Therefore, it is very important for organisations to take a systematic approach to ensuring that their compliance with related laws, regulations and standards is established and maintained. To achieve this goal, a model-based privacy compliance analysis framework called Legal-URN has been proposed.

If you would like to join us for this presentation, please book your place via Eventbrite.

We will look forward to seeing you!

Panel discussion at Conference of the Canadian Society Sociology of Health Montreal 2014

Bournemouth University Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen was invited to take part in a panel discussion at the 4th Conference of the Canadian Society of Sociology of Health.  The panel consisted of academics are long-term collaborators on a project called Birth by Design (BBD).  The meeting was made possible by fellow BBD collaborator Prof. Ivy Bourgeault (University of Ottawa).

The BBD collaboration comprises academics from a range of different scholarly backgrounds including sociology, political science and midwifery.  The group started in 1997 with international colleagues who worked originally on a collaborative project called ‘Birth in Europe and North-America’.  This work resulted in the book Birth by Design1 and many papers in major sociology academic journals including Sociology of Health & Illness and Social Science & Medicine.2-10

 

 

 

 

The panel discussion was introduced and led by BBD collaborator Prof. Cecilia Benoit (University of Victoria, Canada). Dr. Sirpa Wrede (University of Helsinki) outlined the BBD project and the new methodological insights it provided at the time of cross-national comparative research into maternity care.  Prof. Raymond DeVries (University of Michigan & Maastricht Universiteit) spoke of the difficulties Dutch midwives face in their effort to maintain the unique maternity care system in the Netherlands.   Prof. Gene Declercq (Boston University School of Public Health) presented findings of a study of US mothers.  Prof. Jane Sandall (King’s College London) spoke about the policy implementation gap and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen reminded the audience to keep a theoretical perspective in mind when conducting comparative research in general.     Prof. Bourgeault had organised that all slides were translated in the French as the conference was bi-lingual.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1.  DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E. & Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge.     Birth by Design was short-listed for the 2004 BSA Medical Sociology Book Prize!
  2. van Teijlingen, E.R., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., DeVries, R., Bourgeault, I. (2003) Comparative studies in maternity care RCM Midwives Journal 6: 338-40.
  3. DeVries, R., Wrede, S., van Teijlingen E., Benoit, C. & Declercq, E. (2004). Making Maternity Care: The Consequences of Culture for Health Care Systems. In: Vinken, H., Soeters, J. & Ester, P. (Eds.), Comparing Cultures, Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 209-231.
  4. Benoit, C. Wrede, S., Bourgeault, I, Sandall, J., DeVries, R., van Teijlingen E. (2005) Understanding the social organisation of maternity care systems: Midwifery as a Touchstone, Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(6): 722-737.
  5. Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Bourgeault, I.L., van Teijlingen E.R., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2006) Decentered Comparative Research: Context Sensitive Analysis of Health Care, Social Science & Medicine, 63: 2986-2997.
  6. van Teijlingen, E.R., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2009) Born in the USA: Exceptionalism in Maternity Care Organisation Among High-Income Countries Sociological Research Online, 14(1) www.socresonline.org.uk/14/1/5.html
  7. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Wrede, S., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E.R., Westfall, R. (2009) The reconfiguration of professional relations with clients: social service professionalism or market expert? Current Sociology 57(4): 529–553.
  8. Bourgeault, I.L., Declercq, E., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Vanstone, M., van Teijlingen E. DeVries, R. & Benoit, C. (2008) Too posh too push? Comparative perspectives on maternal request caesarean sections in Canada, the US, the UK and Finland. In: Chambré, S.M. & Goldner, M. (eds.) Advances in Medical Sociology Patients, consumers and civil society. Vol. 10. London: JAI Press, 99-123.
  9. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. (2012) Gender and maternal healthcare. In: Kuhlmann E. & Annandale, E. (eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Gender & Healthcare (2nd edn.). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 389-404.
  10. Benoit, C., Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. Maternity Care as Global Health Policy Issue. In: E. Kuhlmann, E., Bourgeault, I. (eds.) Palgrave International Handbook on Health Care Policy & Governance,  Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming).

Neuroscience@BU seminar: “Emergent oscillatory activity in the cerebral cortex” Friday the 2nd of May 14:00 PG 10 (Poole House)

Next Friday the 2nd of May at 14:00 h in PG10, we will have a research seminar in neuroscience entitled “Emergent oscillatory activity in the cerebral cortex”.

Our guest is Prof. Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives, http://www.sanchez-vives.org/,  ICREA Research Professor at the IDIBAPS (Institut d’Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer) in Barcelona, head of the Systems Neuroscience group.

Prof. Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives has published a number of influential papers in journals like e.g. Science, Nature Neuroscience or PNAS and is currently the Chief Editor of Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. She has been funded by Human Frontier Science Program, national and international agencies and has been partner in six European Projects. She is currently coordinator of the FET EU project CORTICONIC.

Her main interests include how neuronal and synaptic properties as well as connectivity determine the emergent activity generated by neuronal networks. The integration of the cortical information giving rise to bodily representation and the combination of brain-computer interfaces and virtual reality for understanding these processes, is another research line of her group.

We strongly suggest not to miss the opportunity to attend to this seminar. Afternoon cakes, coffee and tea will be served during the event.

Best wishes, Emili

Emili Balaguer-Ballester, PhD
Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of Heidelberg

———————————

Title: “Emergent oscillatory activity in the cerebral cortex”.

Abstract: “Understanding complex systems like brain networks is a challenge. Cortical networks can perform computations of remarkable complexity, accounting for a large variety of behaviours and cognitive states. At the same time, the same networks can engage in stereotypical patterns of spatio-temporal activation, such as the ones that can be observed during sleep, anaesthesia and in cortical slice. Collective phenomena emerging from activity reverberation in cortical circuits at different spatio-temporal scales results in a rich variety of dynamical states. Slow (around or below 1 Hz) and fast (15-100 Hz) rhythms are spontaneously generated by the cortical network and propagate or synchronize populations across the cortex. This is the case even in isolated pieces of the cortical network, or in vitro maintained cortical slices, where both slow and fast oscillations are also spontaneously generated. The similarity between some of these patterns both in vivo and in vitro suggests that they are somehow a default activity from the cortical network. We understand that these emergent patterns provide information on the structure, dynamics and function of the underlying cortical network and their alterations in neurological diseases reveal the circuits dysfunction”.

 

 

 

Seminars, hospitals, falls, and a cuddle with a koala

Fusion

Earlier this month I was invited back to Australia for another research visit to Monash University. I was invited to visit Melbourne last year for a research visit and to present at a one-day seminar. This was along with two other UK colleagues from Birmingham and York, who also specialise in falls prevention (one is a geriatrician and the other a nurse). The three of us were invited back and this time we presented at two one-day seminars.

The seminars

Day 1: The first day was focused on falls prevention among older people. I was invited to give two presentations, one on an area of long-term interest to me; increasing older people’s uptake and adherence to falls prevention interventions. The other was to present findings on a pilot project funded by all the RCUK’s and departments of health (led by the MRC), on the topic of outdoor falls. This led to some interesting discussions, and it was also useful to hear other presentations from leading researchers from Sydney.

 

Day 2: The second day focused on patient safety. Some challenging issues were discussed such as learning lessons from mid-Staffs. There was also some discussion of preventive medicine, and I was invited to lead a workshop on behaviour change techniques to increase participation in physical activity interventions for the prevention of falls.

 

Research visit

Before the two one-day seminars, we had some engaging discussions sharing about the research being conducted at our respective institutions. This included work that will lead to an international position paper on how to advance the science of falls prevention research. We also visited a local hospital whereby we were invited for a Question Time type meeting, with the three of us UK visitors plus our host (Dr Anna Barker, Monash University) were quizzed on falls prevention in the hospital setting(!). This proved stimulating and interesting that the same issues being tackled over here are similar to what is experienced at the other side of the world. We also had the excitement of the first participant to be recruited into the RESPOND trial in which I am a collaborator. The RESPOND trial is a multi-site randomised controlled trial that will test the effectiveness of a patient-centred programme to prevent secondary falls in older people presenting to the emergency department with a fall. The protocol paper should be published in the near future…

 

And the koala…

Before heading back to the UK I managed to get 24 hours in Adelaide to visit a colleague who visited the UK back in around 2007. We’ve kept in touch over the years as her PhD was on a similar theme to mine around the psychological barriers to older people’s participation in falls prevention interventions. We managed to get to a zoo and queue up for the much awaited cuddle with a koala. This was fab; like cuddling a teddy bear that is alive! My hosts also kindly arranged for a fish and chip meal on the beach before catching the flight home (felt a terribly British thing to do!).

 

On the whole this was a good visit to do. It led to several useful discussions that I have taken back with me that will shape my research direction, both in the immediate future with my current grant proposal writing and subsequent proposals. It was also useful to strengthen the collaboration between our institutions and engage in useful dialogue with practitioners about the issues I as a researcher am trying to help them overcome.

 

Dr Samuel Nyman

BUDI and Psychology Research Centre

More about academic writing

Publishing

Earlier this year (13th Jan. 2014) we wrote a BU Research Blog under the title ‘Writing about academic publishing’.  We can now add two further contributions this body of work.  The first article in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology offers some advice on how to construct a title for an academic article.  The authors (BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley; BU Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland and Dr. Padam Simkhada and international collaborator Dr. Brijesh Sathian) have a wealth of experience reviewing papers and all have experience as editor board members and/or editors.  The authors are associated the editorial boards of the many journals, including: Birth, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, Medical Science, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, Essentially MIDIRS, Sociological Research Online, Hellenic Journal of Nursing Science, Midwifery and Asian Journal of Health Sciences.  In our joint capacity as reviewers and editors we have seen some great and some awful titles.  The paper in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an attempt to improve the appropriateness and usefulness of titles chosen by budding authors.

Editorial Midwifery 2014

Editorial Midwifery 2014

The second addition is an editorial in the international journal Midwifery published by Elsevier.  Together with HSC Visiting Faculty Prof. Debra Bick we address the question: ‘Who should be an author on your academic paper?’   Still too often we hear about worrying stories from fellow academic s and postgraduate students about inappropriate behaviour related to authorship of academic journal papers.  The Midwifery Editorial advises academics to discuss authorship and authorship order early on in the writing process.  At the same time, it highlights that authorship ‘rules’ or ‘traditions’ can vary between different academic disciplines.  Thus when working in a multidisciplinary team, issues of authorship of any papers which arise out of the study should be discussed before problems or concerns arise.

 

We would like to take this opportunity point our readers to another interesting and useful BU Research Blog written by Shelly Maskell under the title: ‘How to design a completely uninformative title’ (7th Feb. 2014).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Prof. Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(1): 344-347.
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.

 

Highest marks for International Fellowship for Midwives research in Nepal

 

In 2013 Wellbeing of Women joined the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to offer the International Fellowship for Midwives (worth £20,000).  Their first ever recipient was BU Lesley Milne with her supporting team.  Lesley is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery based at BU’s Portsmouth Branch Campus and her proposal set out to undertake a research project to explore barriers to facility birth in Nepal.

 

Delivery bed small hospital Nepal

Apart from Lesley herself the BU team comprises Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research, and two HSC Visiting Faculty members, namely Dr. Padam Simkhada, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and Ms. Jillian Ireland, Community Midwife NHS Poole Hospitals.

 

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

At the end of March 2014 we submitted the final report on the research to Well-Being of Women and the RCM and this report gained an ‘A’ in their scoring system.  Last week at the feedback meeting in Well-Being of Women’s office in London Lesley presented some of her key findings which she illustrated with some of her photographs.  The comments from those round the table were that the topic was well researched and that the qualitative research findings could help focus the funders in their future work.

 

Having reached the dissemination stage, we are planning scientific papers as well as a feedback session in Kathmandu (in September this year). Currently we are working on two academic papers, one is in an advanced stage approaching submission and the other is just passed its draft stage.

 

 

Lesley Milne, Vanora Hundley, Jillian Ireland (Visiting Faculty),Edwin van Teijlingen & Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty)

 

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care

 


HSC Writing Retreat: Freedom to write

Publishing

Today saw the first of two Writing Retreat workshops organised by HSC.  The intensive writing day was led by Ms. Caroline Brimblecombe.  Caroline is a Norwich-based training consultant and project manager, who leads workshops in the technique of freewriting, as well as on academic writing.  She holds an MA in Public Policy from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and spent many years as a public sector manager and policy analyst.  She used a combination of exercises based on notions of creative writing and free writing.  The Writing Retreat offered advice and a dedicated space and time to practice academic writing.  Today’s intensive session was attended by the first cohort of HSC academics, who considered some of their challenges to writing and some of the rewards.  Not surprisingly there were more challenges than rewards, and the former included lack of time, high workload and interruptions.   Personal satisfaction and a sense of achievement scored high on the list of rewards.

Caroline suggested the participants considered ‘Serial Writing’.  This is the notion that you write regularly, hence the ‘serial’.  The idea is to create a flow of writing to help you generate content as well as a habit of writing. This will be a valuable tool for workshop participants who have committed to working with a mentor to produce a manuscript for submission by the end of July.

For those motivated staff members who would like to have a go at this.  The next session is planned for the 28th of May and there are still a few free places available.  Please contact Jo Temple if you would like to sign up.

We both participated ourselves and we would highly recommend this Writing Retreat!

 

Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

Compassion in Action with Professor Belinda Dewar

Wednesday 21st May 2014 between 1 – 1.50pm at the Executive Business Centre (EB203)

Professor Belinda Dewar is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the University of the West of Scotland. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on caring and methodologies for improvement which include Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, as well as designing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes. 

In this presentation Professor Belinda Dewar will discuss the evidence base and policy imperatives for compassion and debate myths and misconceptions of compassion and what we are up against to move forward in this area. She will highlight important work that has already gone on in this area and debate how we can build on this. She will also share with you the development of a model for compassionate relationship centred care and discuss the key domains of this model that support practitioners, in education, practice and research to develop skills in compassionate caring. She will look at specific strategies that bring the model to life including emotional touch points, development of positive caring practices and focusing on compassionate proofing of language.

The masterclass is suitable for postgraduate students, academics and professionals who are looking for an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.

For more information, please contact 01202 962184 or email wellbeing@bournemouth.ac.uk

 We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Appreciative Inquiry Masterclass – Thursday 22nd May

The Centre of Qualitative Research at Bournemouth University is pleased to announce its next Masterclass in Appreciative Inquiry: 22nd May 2014

Venue: Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre, 3rd Floor. Book your place now. This masterclass will focus on the use of Appreciative Action Research as an approach to research and development.

Who should attend: The masterclass is suitable for postgraduate students, academics and professionals who are looking for an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.

Masterclass facilitated by: Professor Belinda Dewar is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the University of the West of Scotland. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on caring and methodologies for improvement which include Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, as well as designing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes.

Schedule: The day will start at 9.30am and finish around 4.15pm. There will be a mixture of seminars with discussions, Q&A sessions and group activities.

Cost: The fees are as follows: External delegates £95, BU staff £80, BU students £50 and Non BU students £75. The price includes lunch and refreshments and all class materials. Accommodation and travel costs are not included.

To book your place, please use our online booking form. Book your place by Monday 19th May 2014.

For more information, please contact 01202 962184 or email wellbeing@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Best wishes Caroline Ellis-Hill

Masterclass Co-ordinator and Senior Lecturer at BU

Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)

Publishing

Last week BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen attended the international conference ’Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)’ [http://optimisebirth.com/] in Brussels, Belgium.  This new conference  in the maternity care field was based on the work of the COST (Co-operation in Science and Technology) Action IS0907.  This Action, over the period 2010-2014, set out to advance scientific knowledge about ways of improving maternity care provision and outcomes for mothers, babies and families across Europe by understanding what works, for who, in what circumstances, and by identifying and learning from the best.

 

As part of this COST Action several academics have spent time over the past three years at Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Susanne Grylka-Bäschlin a Swiss midwife studying at Hannover Medical School, Germany, studied cultural differences in postnatal quality of life among German-speaking women in Switzerland and Germany.  See gave an excellent oral presentation of this first ever study to translate and apply the Mother-Generated Index in German. Mother-Generated Index was originally developed by Dr. Andrew Symon who is based at the University of Dundee [http://dundee.academia.edu/AndrewSymon ].

A further BU contribution to the conference involved the work of another European visitor to the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Dr. Ans Luyben, a Dutch midwife working in Switzerland presented a poster based on work in Switzerland at the COST Action conference at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

EXON by the sea!

Training

 

After many months of negotiation I packed my weekend bag and set off to Eastbourne to provide the first of a six day programme spread over three months on newborn examination, to a select cohort of nine midwives who work for the East Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust. The nearest university (Brighton) does not provide the module and I regularly have midwives travelling up from Brighton to attend the two courses provided annually at the Lansdowne Campus.

Midwives from the midwife led unit (EMU as it is fondly referred to) at Eastbourne Hospital, the acute trust at Hastings and Crowbridge Birthing Unit all joined the module at the beginning of January 2014. Some of the midwives were undertaking the unit in work time and some during their annual leave, but all were enthusiastic and very excited to be finally learning the skills and competencies necessary to become newborn examiners. Currently no midwives in the combined trusts undertake newborn examination and all babies are either examined by junior doctors in training or general practitioners (GPs) in the community setting. For a number of years there have been concerns expressed in the literature around the quality of the newborn examination when undertaken by junior doctors and GPs mainly around training and on-going education. Traditionally doctors in NHS hospitals were taught newborn examination under the mantra ‘see one – do one – teach one’, midwives on the other hand, have had to undergo many months of extra training and are required to undertake between 40 & 60 newborn examinations before being deemed competent. These conditions became onerous for midwives as it became difficult for them to find mentors and assessors to support them in practice. Many requested extensions and in some cases took almost two years to complete. This model of learning was not sustainable in the long run for both the clinical workplace and for university processes. Therefore an opportunity arose to change how BU provided examination of the newborn (EXON) when the post registration framework was re-validated in 2012, with the main difference being in relation to the examinations.

Midwifery is a self-regulating profession; therefore it is up to individual practitioners to judge whether they are component when providing midwifery care. The philosophy of self-regulation underpinning competency guided the provision of the new EXON course in relation to the number of examinations required. Midwives have to carry out a minimum of 10 mentored newborn checks, with five examinations being directly supervised. Once 10 examinations have been carried out midwives can undertake as many self-assessed newborn checks until they feel competent. Once they have reached this point they put themselves forward for one summative assessment which is a newborn examination evaluated in practice.  Midwives have nine months to complete the module. In addition, to further support midwives in training for this role, experienced midwives around the BU patch and as far as West Wiltshire have been provided with a half day update focusing on mentoring/assessing and understanding the EXON paperwork. These midwives have now taken on the role of mentoring and assessing midwives through EXON.

Now having delivered the six day programme the midwives in Eastbourne have successfully completed the academic requirement,s with all passing their ‘enquiry-based learning’ presentations which focused on an aspect of newborn physiology/pathology. The presentations were of an extremely high standard and feedback from the unit leader recommended writing up their work for publication in the British Journal of Midwifery. Their unit evaluations were 100% positive. One of the main benefits centered on the midwives forming a cohesive group and getting to know each other better.  These midwives are leading the way at East Sussex Healthcare. Once they qualify, they in turn, can become mentors and assessors for the next cohort. Perhaps even more importantly, evidence demonstrates that when midwives undertake this expanded role, women’s satisfaction and midwifery autonomy is increased and crucially, there is continuity of care for the woman and her baby and for the midwife herself.

 

For further information on the EXON module please contact Luisa Cescutti-Butler, Senior Lecturer, Lansdowne Campus: lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk