Fetal Monitoring Specialist Midwife

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust; Southampton; On-site; GBP 46,000 - 53,000; Part time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a passionate Fetal Monitoring Specialist Midwife to enhance fetal monitoring standards across their maternity service. This pivotal role combines clinical leadership with education, ensuring that best practices are embedded in care delivery. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in fetal monitoring and demonstrate a commitment to quality improvement and collaborative working. This position offers a unique opportunity to make a significant impact on maternal and neonatal outcomes while working in a supportive and innovative environment.

Benefits

Flexible working environment

Learning and development opportunities

Discounted travel benefits

Access to park & ride facility

Qualifications

• Registered Midwife with significant clinical experience.
• Leadership training and experience in education and audit.

Responsibilities

• Lead fetal monitoring education and training for the multidisciplinary team.
• Ensure compliance with national standards and local guidelines.
• Conduct audits and drive quality improvement in fetal monitoring.

Skills

Fetal Monitoring

Clinical Leadership

Education and Training

Quality Improvement

Communication Skills

Education

Registered Midwife

Diploma or Degree in Midwifery

Leadership Training

Job description

This post is only open to internal applicants.

Fetal Monitoring Specialist Midwife

Main area Fetal Monitoring Specialist Midwife Grade Band 7 Contract Permanent Hours Part time - 15 hours per week Job ref 188-SNM030525-I

Site University Hospital Southampton Town Southampton Salary £46,148.00- £52,809.00 Per Annum (PA) Pro Rata Closing 25/05/2025 23:59 Interview date 06/06/2025

Job overview

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is delighted to offer a fantastic opportunity to work with us.

Please see below for detailed job description of the role.

Main duties of the job

We are seeking a current UHS senior midwifery practitioner (Band 7 or above) to take a pivotal role as a Fetal Monitoring Specialist Midwife. You’ll need to have experience and knowledge of the best practices for fetal monitoring and demonstrate leadership to continue embedding the national agenda for Saving Babies Lives, as well as actions from local learning regarding fetal monitoring.

This is an exciting opportunity for a senior midwife with a passion for education, clinical excellence, and service improvement to play a key role in enhancing fetal monitoring standards across our maternity service.

The successful candidate will work collaboratively with the Consultant Obstetric Lead for Fetal Monitoring to deliver high-quality, evidence-based training and support the implementation of best practice in fetal heart rate monitoring. This role is central to improving antenatal and intrapartum safety and optimising outcomes for women and their babies.

Key Responsibilities:
• Clinical Leadership and Education
Lead the development, coordination, and delivery of a comprehensive curriculum of fetal monitoring education for the multidisciplinary team. Ensure that training is aligned with national standards, local priorities, and professional regulatory requirements.
Delivering monthly Fetal Surveillance Study Day, to support the Trust meeting the Saving Babies Lives target of 90% compliant across all relevant professional groups.
Lead on the learning from local cases and delivering service improvements from action plans about fetal monitoring.
• Audit and Quality Improvement
Have oversight of the monitoring and auditing of Element Four of the Saving Babies' Lives Care Bundle. Use audit findings to drive continuous quality improvement in fetal monitoring practices, supporting the reduction of avoidable harm and promoting safe, individualised care.
• Standards and Governance
Take responsibility for improving standards in fetal heart rate monitoring, including interpretation, timely escalation, fetal monitoring equipment oversight, and appropriate management of care across all clinical settings. Contribute to the development and implementation of local guidelines, policies, and pathways.
• Professional Role Modelling
Act as a visible and accessible role model, demonstrating midwifery expertise, professionalism, and compassionate leadership at all times. Provide mentorship and support to colleagues, promoting a culture of learning, safety, and excellence in maternity care.
Provide professional leadership across all aspects of fetal monitoring working alongside lead obstetricians, midwifery leadership team, consultant midwives and practice education team to improve associated birth outcomes.

This role requires a proactive, confident midwife with excellent communication skills, sound clinical judgement, and a commitment to collaborative working. Your ability to engage and inspire colleagues across professional boundaries will be key to your success in this role.

Working for our organisation

University Hospital Southampton is one of England's largest acute teaching Trusts, offering a wide range of learning and development opportunities to support your career aspirations.

Located on the south coast with an international airport and direct rail links to London, Southampton offers an ideal setting to live and work, with the New Forest, South Downs and Jurassic Coast.

We believe that using technology wisely shows strong time management and commitment to innovation. However, personalizing your recruitment application to highlight your unique skills and experiences is crucial. Relying too heavily on generic, AI-generated content instead of drawing from your own strengths and accomplishments may lead to your application being rejected if multiple candidates present identical or similar information.

At UHS we’re committed to providing a flexible working environment where possible. Whether you are balancing family, study, or your wellbeing with your career, we want to support you so you can help our patients.

At UHS, we proudly champion individuality, recognizing that outstanding care is only possible with a diverse, inclusive team. We’re committed to creating an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory environment where everyone feels valued, safe, and empowered to make a meaningful impact in our communities. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences to join us in building a healthcare community where everyone can belong, thrive, and contribute.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

What you will do:

• Develop local guidance in response to changes in national guidance and findings of reports related to fetal monitoring in labour; taking part in discussions both locally and regionally with other fetal monitoring specialist midwives and obstetricians.
• Take an innovative and creative approach to education in academic and clinical settings and be responsible for ensuring the completion of a competency assessment process for all applicable staff.
• Consider the wider factors that impact on fetal monitoring and work as part of the wider team to address these.
• Consider process and practices for intrapartum risk assessment and explore innovative ways to improve this.
• Undertake audits and case reviews as needed within the remit of this role.
• Work in collaboration with the regional team & Fetal monitoring network.

What we are looking for:

As the Fetal Monitoring Specialist Midwife, you will hold ongoing responsibility for ensuring the development, coordination, and delivery of a continuous education programme for clinical staff within maternity services. This education must be designed and delivered in an engaging and accessible manner, enabling staff to apply up-to-date clinical knowledge and provide safe, evidence-based care.

In this leadership role, you will be instrumental in consolidating existing knowledge and enhancing the skills of the multidisciplinary team in all aspects of fetal heart rate monitoring — including accurate interpretation, timely escalation, and appropriate clinical management. You will work collaboratively with the wider maternity team to ensure that staff involved in fetal wellbeing monitoring are supported through structured clinical supervision, and you will lead on developing and implementing clinically grounded teaching sessions that promote improved birth outcomes.

A key focus of the role will be to expand and develop midwives’ confidence and competence in performing intermittent fetal heart auscultation. You will actively support staff in refining their fetal monitoring skills with the aim of reducing avoidable harm, recognising emerging risks, and ensuring timely escalation in line with best practice.

In partnership with the maternity team, you will contribute to the development of a strong safety culture, supporting improvements in practice despite the challenges posed by resource constraints and competing clinical priorities. Your leadership will be key in embedding a proactive, risk-aware approach to fetal monitoring and strengthening the quality of care provided to women and their babies.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and proactive individual who will lead the development of fetal monitoring in collaboration with the obstetric fetal monitoring lead. The successful applicant will be required to have existing knowledge and experience of fetal monitoring including IA and CTG and managing difficult conversations and escalations in practice.

Experience of education, training and audit is desirable.

Personal qualities and attributes integral to the role include excellent communication, negotiation and influencing skills, being approachable, a problem solver and a positive agent for change.

It is expected that the successful candidate will always demonstrate professional integrity, uphold the Trust values and be an ambassador for midwifery and UHS.

Person specification

Qualifications / training required

• Registered Midwife on relevant part of the NMC register
• Significant clinical experience
• Associate/mentorship qualification or equivalent experience
• Diploma or degree in midwifery
• Evidence of continual professional development
• Leadership training
• Examination of the newborn qualification

Previous or relevant experience necessary

• Relevant and recent clinical experience or with the ability to demonstrate significant experience in midwifery practice and responsibility for managing a clinical team
• Experience of setting and monitoring standards
• Demonstrate specialist expertise underpinned by evidence-based care philosophy
• Evidence of proven leadership and management skills
• Previous involvement of multi-disciplinary team working and multi-agency working across the health and social economy
• Ability to work within a broad, inter-professional team
• Experience of writing protocols, guidelines and integrated care pathways
• High dependency course
• Team leadership role
• Evidence of audit
• Experience of leading change management programmes

Please be advised that this vacancy may close earlier than stated if we receive a large number of applications. We will not accept any applications or queries via agencies, under any circumstances.

Getting to work should be as easy as possible and that’s why we have introduced the UHS travel promise – a commitment from the Trust that we will provide reasonable travel options for every member of staff. Every member of staff can apply for a permit to use our park & ride facility. Eligibility for on-site parking is dependent on the nature and requirement of the role. All staff can also access a range of discounted benefits relating to travel including reduced price bus tickets, purchase of salary sacrifice bikes and ultra-low emission cars.

Our commitment to equality

Equality remains at the centre of our policymaking, service delivery, and employment practice, giving all employees equal opportunity to develop, apply for promotions, and have working arrangements that enable them to achieve a manageable work-life balance.

UHS actively promotes a work environment free from harassment and discrimination and provides training for managers and staff to ensure this happens. We also closely monitor recruitment activity, training, development, and employment practices to ensure equality of practice with regard to race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and age.

How and why we use your information

The Trust is under a duty to protect the public funds it administers, and to this end may use the information you have provided on this form for the prevention and detection of fraud. It may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds for these purposes.

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Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Name Alison Millman Job title Safety & Quality Assurance Matron Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 023 8120 2186 Additional information

Contact name: Jessica Bown

Contact job title: Safety & Quality Assurance Matron

Contact email address: [e-mail]

Contact telephone number: 023 8120 2186