Introduction
It is anticipated that all
Supervisors of Midwives in England will work to a common set of
standards for the supervision of midwives and midwifery practice.
The audit documentation has been adapted for local use of the LSA
Midwifery Officers in Trent.
The Audit
Process
It is anticipated that using the
audit tool for guidance the supervisors of midwives will prepare
evidence in preparation for the audit visit. The evidence should be
presented in an organised manner separating the evidence required
for each standard. Suggestions for evidence are given for guidance,
and are not intended to be prescriptive or exclusive.
A self-audit using the audit tool
should be completed and sent to the LSA Midwifery Officer at least
two weeks prior to the visit.
All supervisors are expected to
complete a ‘supervisor’s questionnaire’; these should also be sent
to the LSA Midwifery Officer at least two weeks prior to the
visit.
The midwives’ questionnaire about
their experience of supervision should be distributed to a
randomly-selected group of midwives (minimum of 30%). The
forms should be collated and sent to the LSA Midwifery Officer at
least two weeks prior to the visit.
Audit
visit
The date of the visit to be agreed
at least two months in advance.
The LSA Midwifery Officer will be
accompanied by a supervisor and possibly a trainee/newly appointed
supervisor from another trust to continue the peer review
element.
The LSA Midwifery Officer would
welcome a service user to also be involved. This will be discussed
with the trust in advance.
Midwives
audit
It is important that all midwives
have an opportunity to complete a questionnaire once every 3
years.
The workforce (including bank
midwives) should be divided into three and each supervisor should
have some midwives every year who will be audited.
The names should be noted and the
forms given out and returned in a sealed envelope to the named
supervisor.
A record should be kept of midwives
names so that the following year a different set of midwives are
audited. The audit forms should be followed up to ensure that
the response rate is as high as possible.
The audit forms should be returned
to the LSA Midwifery Officer two weeks before the day of the visit
so they can be collated and the results discussed on the day of the
visit.
Supervisors
Audit
It is important that all supervisors
complete the audit form
The forms should be sent with the
midwives audit two weeks prior to the visit.
Self Audit
Tool
This is completed prior to the visit
and submitted with the other forms two weeks prior to the
visit.
The aim of the self-audit is to
enable the supervisors to identify areas that need further
development.
Audit
visit
Suggested programmes can be seen
further on in this section. These can be adapted for local use.
Where there is more than one site
the LSA Midwifery Officer will discuss with the contact supervisor
the programme for the visits.
It is suggested that the programme
starts with a presentation from the supervisors and that the
Trust’s senior management team should be invited to this.
Suggestions for the presentation
include - achievements in relation to the strategy for supervision,
current issues, initiatives, areas of good practice and areas of
concern. These could be set in context with numbers of births,
operative births, induction of labour, home births, water-births
etc., together with the current position in relation to CNST, NSF,
CEMACH recommendations, normalising birth, birth rate plus,
staffing levels, your closures etc.
One-to-one meetings between the
executive officers and the LSA Midwifery Officer may be included in
the programme if requested.
The LSA Midwifery Officer is
required to have user involvement; this will be discussed with the
contact supervisor. Initially it may be easier for a user already
involved in the service to contribute to the visit i.e. MSLC Chair
or member, Labour Ward Forum member or other user group. It is
anticipated in the future that users from maternity services will
visit other maternity units with the LSA Midwifery
Officer.
Adopted with the permission of
the South of England LSAMO
