What I learned from my placement at the Nursing and Midwifery Council

Midwifery student Sara-Irlanda shares her experience on her elective placement at the Nursing and Midwifery Council and how it has helped her take control of her university experience.

Wanting to learn about the politics around midwifery

My name is Sára Irlanda. I am a third year midwifery student at RGU. I am also a mother of two, born in Hungary, and I am absolutely fascinated by every aspect of midwifery.

During my midwifery journey, I’ve had the incredible privilege of gaining experience in maternity services across Hungary, England, and Scotland. These diverse settings have profoundly shaped my understanding of midwifery and ignited a passion for learning about the politics of our profession.

One key factor in broadening my horizons has been my connection with the International Student Midwife Network. This fantastic platform allowed me to interact with student midwives around the world, learning about different cultures, practices, and healthcare systems. These interactions highlighted the universal passion we all share for supporting mothers and babies, despite the varied contexts in which we work.

My curiosity about the politics of midwifery grew as I saw how policies and regulations shape our practices and impact the care we provide. This realisation fuelled my desire to understand how diplomacy and advocacy play crucial roles in advancing our profession and ensuring midwives’ voices are heard in healthcare discussions.

Joining the Nursing and Midwifery Council

The Nursing and Midwifery council (NMC) is an independent regulatory body of all nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom that sets standards for practising midwives and education facilitators both for hospitals and for universities.

When I discovered the NMC elective placement opportunity, I knew I had to apply. This placement offered a chance to gain insight into the inner workings of the NMC. Initially, I associated the NMC with the dreaded “fit for practice” assessments and revalidation. However, during my placement, I quickly realised there is so much more to it.

I had the opportunity to observe and participate in research debates, interdisciplinary work, and witness real leadership during meetings with stakeholders. I felt involved and listened to when they invited me to bring my perspective to the table.

I am aware of the recently published independent review that heavily criticised the culture within NMC and that was a shocking and concerning read. This is not to invalidate nor to challenge the reality of those who experienced undoubtedly inappropriate behaviours from their colleagues. However, during my two weeks I had overall positive experiences thus, this blog post will reflect on that.

Diving deeper into the work of the NMC

I found that NMC’s research interests are informed and progressive with encouraging students to share their practical experience in ways that really influence policy and decision making. During a meeting about the currently ongoing project of Review of Practice Learning, the NMC highlighted that “students are one of the most important stakeholders of NMC”. As part of the review process, they set up focus groups to explore students’ experience and they continue working with students via the advisory group, to which I am also part of.

I was happy to see that they are committed to lifelong learning and international comparative engagement so they can explore best practices wherever they might originate. For example, they taught me ways to explore other countries’ midwifery practice and showed me how they think about translating innovative ideas into the UK’s policy and practice.

One of the best parts of my experience was witnessing the diplomatic and professional attitude when mediating between different stakeholders and third sector agencies. I participated in meetings with a registered midwife asking for support when offering postpartum care, a member of a charity that was struggling negotiating between service users and hospital, and a lead midwife for education asking guidance when interpreting NMC’s standards. The overall theme of these meetings tends to be the same: provoking a professional discussion, bring in an objective perspective whilst offering support in decision making about education, quality improvement or provided care.

What I learned from my experience

As I get closer to qualification, I begin to worry about losing the support and safety network of the university. Now, I believe every midwife should know their regulator and know how to engage with them, especially when newly qualified, so they are fully aware of the available support network.

After my time with NMC, I feel that whenever I am in doubt, I could clarify guidelines and standards directly with them to ensure I have confidence in my work and to allow my practice to improve by understanding the system behind the guidelines and identify situations where improvement could be necessary.

I would like to encourage everyone to have confidence in their decisions but whenever they might be challenged try opening the floor for a broader discussion and facilitate improvements. Thus, emphasise that we are all part of the decision making instead of suggesting that decisions are happening to us without any power over them. This could also prevent immediate negative associations linked with any institution (i.e. hospital, university, NMC, etc.). I was reassured from NMC that they would prefer a proactive relationship with students and all registered practitioners when active involvement is present.

I would also hope that NMC could offer a more accessible platform where people are encouraged to promote professional discussions about ways of practising. I would like to invite everyone to stay kind with their feedback and be as generous with the positive as with the negative. There is an art both to receiving and providing feedback. By practising kindness and empathy in challenging situations, constructive feedback is promoted, and improvement becomes more likely. In the meantime, by using the forums for discussions and opportunities to learn from one and other, we can all broaden our perspective and improve our practice.

Find out more

Visit council meetings or just get in touch with NMC using the contact details available on their website. You can all sign up for their newsletter via https://r1.dotdigital-pages.com/p/129A-N0J/midwifery-newsletter . You don’t have to work for the NMC to break the chain of previous eras and be active participant in regulating midwifery by make each of our unique voices heard.