Maternity Care Assistant Swansea, Wales
Job description
The Midwifery team at Swansea Bay delivers a high quality, family centred service to our community thanks to the great work of our Midwives and support team, including our Maternity Care Assistants.
As we continue to develop our service, we are looking to expand our Maternity Care Assistant team (MCA’s) and have a number of Band 3 roles available for talented individuals who want to build a career with us.
If you have an existing training qualification in Maternity Care (minimum of Qualification Credit Framework – QCF Level 3 (formerly NVQ) we will help you develop a breadth of skills to enable you to work within antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care in both hospital and community settings.
If you don’t possess a maternity specific vocational training qualification, we will consider candidates that have significant clinical experience as a Band 2 Health Care Assistant. We will help you successfully complete a Maternity Care Assistant training programme and associated clinical competencies to qualify as an MCA.
We will consider both full time and part time applications for this role.
We will be holding a applicant Q&A session for this role- this will be taking place on Thursday 19th January at 1pm. This session is a good opportunity to introduce yourself to the team, ask any questions you might have and learn more about the role and the health board. If you have any queries please contact [email protected].
To join - Click here to join the meeting
The Maternity Care Assistant compliments the work of the maternity team to ensure that delivery of care is high quality, safe, effective and dignified within the hospital or community setting. As a Maternity Care Assistant the post holder is expected to support the registered midwife in ensuring all women receive optimum personalised midwifery care. Successful candidates will have autonomy to undertake a broader range of more complex interventions, problem solving and take action on an individual’s health and care in accordance with policy and procedures.
The ability to speak Welsh is desirable for this post; Welsh and/or English speakers are equally welcome to apply.
Swansea Bay University Health Board covers a population of around 390,000 in Neath/Port Talbot and Swansea areas and we have a budget of around £1bn.
Our values were developed by listening to our service users, the community and our staff. They show our commitment to equality and are at the centre of everything we do. These are; caring for each other, working together and always improving and this is something that we in maternity service, strive for each and every day.
Singleton Hospital, overlooking Swansea Bay, hosts a range of maternity services across the site. Theses include;
- antenatal clinics,
- day assessment unit,
- acute assessment unit,
- ante-natal ward,
- our midwifery led bay birth unit,
- labour ward,
- post natal ward,
- obstetric theatre
- close links with our tertiary neonatal unit on site and transitionary care unit on antenatal ward.
Neath/Port Talbot Hospital was opened in 2003 and has roughly 200 beds. Our Maternity services in NPT comprise of:
- Ante-natal clinics
- Day Assessment Unit
- Midwifery Led Unit
Delivering care to the women, baby and family
The Maternity Care Assistant plays a key role in the delivery of safe, high quality and personalised health care, within the course of their duties the post holder will:
- Assist the registered midwife in the assessment, on-going assessment, management and evaluation of care for women.
- Under direction of the registered midwife, supports appropriate individualised, clinical/risk assessments providing accurate feedback as necessary.
- Partake in the routine admission, transfer and discharge of women in accordance with Health Board policies; supporting the registered midwife to perform effective and timely discharge planning.
- Deliver safe, high quality, compassionate care following individualised care plans and treatment interventions determined by the registered midwife. This will include supporting women with all aspects of the fundamentals of care including activities of daily living, providing feedback to the midwife on progress against the plans.
- Promote good hand hygiene and minimise the spread of infection. Take responsibility and accountability for own infection prevention control practice in line with health board Infection Prevention & Control policy and guidance.
- Ensure the cleanliness of equipment in all clinical and non-clinical areas and assist the registered midwife in appropriately preparing the environment.
- Carry out specific delegated clinical and care tasks and responsibilities to a high standard and competency, under the direction and supervision of a registered midwife, This will include: • Routine maternal vital signs and recording (temperature, manual blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation) calculation of MEWS score (Maternal Early Warning Score) and discuss appropriate action with the registered midwife in line with local protocols.
- Point of Care Testing for identified routine monitoring: Urinalysis, blood glucose including responsibility for conducting compliance with both internal and external quality assessment of equipment.
- Measuring maternal weight, height and calculation of Body Mass Index.
- Measure and record baby weight. Report any concern immediately to the registered midwife in order that a plan of care can be developed.
- Discuss changing stool and micturition of normal neonate with the registered midwife.
- Carbon Monoxide monitoring and recording of results in all clinical areas.
- Perform neonatal observations of billirubinometer and temperature readings on a low risk baby, reporting any deviations from the normal range.
- Obtaining routine ECG.
- Obtaining diagnostic samples: venous blood samples including Glucose Tolerance Testing, obtaining capillary blood samples from babies via heel prick.
- Venous cannulation, where deemed appropriate in the role specific scope of practice.
- Obtaining microbiology swabs, stool and sputum specimen.
- Supporting mothers with their early post-natal recovery.
- Provide postnatal advice to women in relation to bladder care.
- Supporting women in their chosen method of infant feeding in line with Unicef and Baby Friendly Initiative and report any concerns in relation to feeding to the registered midwife, this will include:
- Advising women on the health benefits of breast feeding, teaching of hand expression, responsive feeding and how to overcome common problems with breast feeding during the first weeks of life;
- Position and comfort of breastfeeding women including the position and attachment of the baby;
- Support mothers with artificial feeding including demonstration of how to prepare an artificial feed and equipment care.
- Advocating breast feeding peer volunteer support groups and advising how to access such services.
- Support mothers with caring for their baby.
- Observe and advise mother on care of cord including recognition of abnormalities and reporting these to a registered midwife as appropriate.
- Assist women with maintaining their personal hygiene and monitor skin integrity, reporting any pressure marks to the registered midwife; giving advice, understanding the indications for and measuring appropriately for Anti Embolic Stockings.
- Work with the registered midwife to prepare women for elective or emergency caesarean section.
- Act as runner in theatre or at assisted delivery when required to do so.
Recognises and effectively responds to emergency situations escalating support from the registered midwife in a timely and appropriate manner.
Recognise and report to a registered midwife potential signs of neonatal jaundice.
In community settings the post holder must follow the organisation’s lone worker policy/procedure in order to maintain their personal safety.
Promotion of Independence and Wellbeing
The Maternity Care Assistant plays an important role in being able to undertake a health promotion activity with a mother, within the course of their duties the post holder will:
- Involve women in their care, encouraging independence and supporting them to improve and maintain their mental and physical health and wellbeing.
- Support the midwifery team in the delivery of parent education; and direct care of women and babies, family support and clerical duties to promote the health and wellbeing of mothers and their babies.
- Promote skin-to-skin contact with healthy babies and their mothers/fathers.
- Participate in health promotion activities to include advice on smoking cessation, nutritional health, breast and formula feeding and parenting skills and family adjustment.
- Ensure that all patients, carers, relatives and colleagues are treated with respect and dignity.
- Ensure valid consent is obtained prior to undertaking care procedures.
- Recognise issues relating to Safeguarding adults, children and the unborn and report any problems or raise concerns to the appropriate registered midwife in a timely manner.
- Maintain accurate patient records, both written and electronic in accordance with Health Board Policy having regard to information governance, GDPR, confidentiality and safekeeping.
- Be responsible for all records that are gathered, created or used as part of role, ensuring that the records and confidentiality are both maintained at all times, as required by legislation and Health Board policy and procedures.
- Demonstrates the ability to identify situations which may cause concern e.g. in relation to patient care / health and safety and reports to the registered midwife in a timely and appropriate manner.
- Assist with basic baby resuscitation e.g. wrap and dry baby.
- Take emergency action as necessary to safeguard women and babies and to call for relevant help as necessary.
- Provide support, guidance and supervision to other unregistered staff promoting the delivery of person centred, safe and high quality care for mothers and babies throughout pregnancy, birth and immediately following birth within the hospital or community setting.
- Undertakes additional champion/ link roles as requested by the Senior Midwife.
- Organise/contribute to midwife-led antenatal and postnatal classes.
- Arrange appointments, ultrasound scans, investigations and obtain laboratory results.
- Undertake home visits both jointly and independently and deliver care in accordance to the care plan and escalate to a registered midwife as appropriate.
- Participate in audit activities being undertaken in area of practice.
- Contribute to the improvement of service by reflecting on own practice and supporting that of others.
- Promote the role of the Maternity Care Assistant.
The post holder will represent the health board in the delivery of quality care to patients, within their scope of practice and competency, the post holder will:
- Welcome patients, visitors and relatives to the clinical area providing assistance, support and information where required, being aware of barriers to effective communication.
- Communicate sensitively, confidentially and with empathy to meet the wideranging physical and emotional needs of women their carers and families.
- Communicates effectively with women and families and overcomes barriers to effective communication in a manner which is sensitive to patients, carers and relative’s needs. This includes communicating effectively with women who may have a degree of sensory impairment, speech and language difficulties, cognitive impairment, learning difficulties and challenging behaviour.
- Reports accidents/untoward occurrences and complaints to the relevant registered midwife as soon as possible.
- Works as an effective member of the team, actively promoting good team relationships.
- Work in an effective and organised manner demonstrating excellent time management and organisational skills to effectively deliver person-centred care for an allocated group of individuals.
- Attend team meetings where possible contribute to team discussions that help improve and maintain excellent quality care for women, babies and families.
