From Patient Facing to PC Facing – a Midwife’s Story – Blog by Joanne Birtwhistle
This time last year if you’d have told me that I’d be working in a hybrid role, being part of an incredibly supportive team and still helping patients, I’d have bet my Band 7 monthly salary, that it wouldn’t be possible. Fast forward 12 months and here I am. Three months in working as a Clinical Engagement and Implementation Manager (CEIM), learning many new things and a career change that I didn’t realise I needed.
I’ve been a midwife for nearly 20 years working in a variety of roles within the NHS and Private Maternity units. In the latter years I was primarily based on the labour ward then branched into the digital space, implementing an electronic patient record into maternity which enabled e-prescribing and data analysis to establish areas of quality improvement to the service being provided.
It wasn’t until an incident occurred regarding a new epidural pump that established my interest into the procurement process and how clinical engagement is so important to the supply chain process. So, like any clinician, we base our practice on current and up to date research. I started to investigate why this incident had occurred through the clinical governance process. It transpired that clinical engagement with some key stakeholders, hadn’t occurred and subsequently a patient could have come to harm.
Why had this happened and what could be done to protect patients? It was on a cold February evening when I came across the role of a CEIM for IV Therapy at NHS Supply Chain. It was like this job had found me. I knew I wanted to try something new having completed my Masters in Health Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. I was looking for my next challenge. This role ticked all the boxes. I could apply all of my clinical experience, learn something new, and continue to help patients on a national scale.
Since starting in August 2024, it has been a very steep learning curve, adjusting to the change in pace. Being used to hitting the ground running in a clinical setting, it took time to adjust to a new environment, structure, and processes. I was speaking to a colleague just the other day who was previously a front line high-dependency unit (HDU) nurse and she described this transition as a grieving process. You do feel guilty leaving a patient facing role because after so many years, nursing and midwifery becomes a part of you. If you cut me in half, it would read midwife like a stick of rock. But the advice she gave was to always remember in this role, you are ultimately helping someone’s mother, father, sister or brother and they could easily be your family.
This really resonated with me. I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of how my new role can really impact the wider patients’ experience or reassure my front-line colleagues that they`ll have the right equipment, in the right place, at the right time, for the right procedure, enabling them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.
So, do I regret leaving front line midwifery? Absolutely not. The role of CEIM found me by chance, when the universe knew I needed it the most and has subsequently changed my life. It`s been scary leaving a profession that I`ve been a part of since I started my training at 19 years old, but sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.
I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to my new amazing clinical team. Your warm welcome and endless support is very much appreciated.
I will end with one of my favourite quotes.
What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?
Erin Hanson, Poet and Writer