The Importance Of A Clinical Midwife Is Based And Explore The Legislation Which Regulates Midwifery Practice

Being a midwife does not only defined by assisting women in childbirth. The general dictionary definition are the misconception of how people view midwives. Being a midwife means to be ‘with women’ and this leads the construction of the midwifery philosophy, Page (2006) 5 steps and Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) competency standards, in order to provide the best women centred care (Australia Collage of Midwives, 2017). This essay will cover a constructive overview of what Page (2006) 5 steps of being a midwife means, it will also defined what women centred care is and emphasis on the importance it has for the woman. Understanding Page (2006) 5 steps and women centred care helped build the pathway for midwifery philosophy to correlate with NMBA competency standard in order to support midwifery practice. For

This essay will explore why consent and confidentiallity is important in midwifery practice. It will look into why it is needed and what can happen if these aspects are breeched in anyway. The National Health service was founded in 1948, this brought free healthcare to everyone. In 1902 the Midwives act becomes a law and midwifery became an established profession, fast forward to 2004 the midwives rules and standards are published and then amended in 2012 and in 2008 the code of conduct was brought into practice. These publications are legal documents in which all nurse and midwives must abide by. In these documents there are clear rules that surround both consent and confidentiality (NHS Choices 2014)

The Australian College of Midwives believes that it is the right of every pregnant woman to have access to continuity of care by a known midwife for her pregnancy, labour and early postnatal period. Midwives are the most appropriate primary care providers for healthy mothers and newborn babies and are able to refer to specialist medical care if the need arises (Hicks, Spurgeon & Barwell, 2003). Midwives must work within the competency standards enforced by The ANMC Australian Nursing & Midwifery Council (2006) in order to obtain and practice as a registered midwife in Australia. Competency 4 states Midwives should “promote safe and effective practice” (ANMC, 2006), this is achievable by providing Midwifery continuity of care to women and

The NMC (2008) also states that the nurse must recognise and respect the role of the patient/client as partners in their care and the contribution they can make to

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) are responsible for; developing standards and setting codes and guidelines for the nursing profession (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2015, para.1). Nurses need to meet the professional standards of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia they can do this by being registered with the board to meet the established professional standards in Australia to protect others and the public (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2017, para.1).

According to the ANA Code for Nurses Provision 1, nurses must treat and respect every patient with dignity, regardless of

The nursing and midwifery code of conduct makes sure that staff are properly trained to do their job properly and that people can trust them doing their job, and that they trust them with their health and wellbeing, and it makes sure that staff are trustworthy and that they can treat people with respect. The nursing and midwifery code of conduct makes sure that: staff treat people as individuals so that their privacy and dignity is protected, and that they are not discriminated against, peoples confidentiality must be respected, you must disclose information if it is believed that someone is in danger. And it makes sure that consent is gained, such as when providing care or treatment. This affects patient care as the Code of Conduct ensures that people are treated correctly and that boundaries are not being broken, such as patients being abused. It makes sure that people are dealt with properly and that records are kept, and that they are securely

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) published the expected standards for pre-registration midwifery education. They stated that Student Midwives are required to assist in the care and support of several women throughout their antenatal, intrapartum and postpartum period. This is achieved via the caseload holding scheme (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2009). Midwifery led continuity of care models are described as care given during the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal period from a known and trusted midwife in order to empower a woman to have a healthy pregnancy and birth (Sandall, Soltani and Gates, 2016). In September 2005 research was published supporting midwifery-led continuity of care, which they found was linked to a number of benefits for both mothers and babies, in contrast with obstetrically led and shared care (The Royal College of Midwives, 2014).

This report will evaluate the roles and responsibilities of a midwife. “Midwifery encompasses care of women during pregnancy, labour, and the postpartum period, as well as care of the new-born.”(WHO, 2015) This is a recent definition and clearly points out that a midwife has many roles and responsibilities. The NMC Codes of Conduct will be evaluated with specific emphasis on recent changes within healthcare. These changes took place as a result of the tragedies at Mid-Staffordshire Hospital in 2005-2009 and are the outcome of the Francis report in order to improve care given to patients.

The NMC has a code of professional conduct, standard for conduct, performance and ethics, the code clearly states the need for nurses, midwives as well as special community public health nurses to maintain their professional knowledge and competence in order to deliver care based on current evidence, best practice and where applicable (NMC 2004, p.10). Hence, nursing profession is regulated by the NMC which has

In this Assignment, we will be looking at and discussing how the Nursing Midwifery Council’s Code (NMC) can guide the provision of person centred nursing care. What is the NMC’s Code? NMC Code is a list of professional requirements that which the nurses and midwives needs to adhere in order to practice in United Kingdom. This Code also helps the nurses and midwives to maintain their professional standards throughout their career. The Code is divided into four important sections. The sections are Prioritise people, Practise effectively and Preserve safety and Promote professionalism and trust (NMC 2015).

In this assignment we will be discussing how the Nursing and Midwifery Council NMC (2015) guides nurses in the direction of good practice. Why we have the code? Who the code is for? How to implement the code in our daily lives as practitioners. The NMC (2015) is a set of guidelines which nurses and midwives must adhere to in order to provide the best care possible to their patients. The NMC (2015) is split into four main sections:

As an individual’s ethics will play a large part in their practice, there are specific guidelines and legislation that exist to ensure that nurses, as well as other health professionals, practice in a way that is ethical (Avery, 2013). These laws further exists to attempt to simplify the ethical issues that sometimes present in nursing practice and to attempt to guide one’s actions. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) provides guidance to nurses by providing a number of professional codes and guidelines (Avery, 2013). The NMBA has developed a code of ethics for nurses comprising of eight codes (Avery, 2013). These are as follows; 1) Nurses value quality nursing care for all people; 2) Nurses value respect and kindness for self and others;

NMC (2008) The Code: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives. London: Nursing and Midwifery Council

Hearing the word midwife leaves many people thinking of unprofessional, inexperienced women who help deliver babies naturally, without the help of medication. In truth, nurse-midwives are registered nurses who have attended additional schooling for women’s health and are taught to make women feel as comfortable as possible. In the beginning, remedies were the females’ legacies, their “birthright”; these females were known as “wise-women by the people, witches of charlatans by authorities”. (Ehrenreich, 1973). “Females were wanderers, traveling from one place to another, healing the sick and wounded.” (Ehrenreich 1973). These women were among the first human healers and they were especially helpful when it came to childbearing. The midwives