Unit 18: Working in the Health Sector P1, M1 & D1

Authors Avatar by rebeccahughes-allivecouk (student)

Assignment One: Investigate Potential Careers in Healthcare

  1. P1: Explain the requirements for two different careers in the health sector.

The job role of a midwife is to provide advice, care and support for women and their babies during pregnancy, labour and the early postnatal period. They help women make their own decisions about the care and services they access. Their responsibilities are wide ranging and include; caring for new-born children, providing health education and parenting support immediately after delivery, until care is transferred to a health visitor. Midwives are personally responsible for the health of both mother and baby and only refer to obstetricians if there are medical complications. They work in multidisciplinary teams in both hospital, and increasingly, in community health care settings.

Midwives do a multitude of duties, all the while adhering to hospital policy and maintaining an awareness of issues such as health and safety, examples of these duties are; diagnosing, monitoring and examining women during pregnancy, developing, assessing and evaluating individual programmes of care, providing full antenatal care, including screening tests in hospital, in the community and at home. Midwives identify high risk pregnancies and make referrals to doctors and other medical specialists, they arrange and provide counselling and advice before and after screening and tests. They offer support and advice following events such as miscarriage, termination, stillbirth and neonatal death. They supervise and assist mothers in labour, monitoring the condition of the foetus and use knowledge of drugs and pain management, they give support and advice on the daily care of the baby including breastfeeding, bathing and making up feeds. Midwives liaise with agencies and other health and social care professionals to ensure continuity of care. Throughout their careers they engage in professional development to meet PREP requirements, and they participate in the training and supervision of junior colleagues.

To become a midwife, you need to have a minimum of five GCSEs at grade C or above, typically including English Language/Literature and a science subject and either two or three A Levels or equivalent. Some trusts run cadet schemes which can lead to entry onto a pre-registration programme in midwifery. These are increasingly being replaced by apprenticeships. You need to do an approved degree in midwifery at University to become a midwife.

You need certain personal qualities to be a midwife and these include;

  • Having an understanding and caring nature.
  • Having the ability to get on well with people from a wide range of backgrounds.
  • Having emotional and mental strength.
  • Having good observational skills.
  • Having the ability to act on your own initiative.
  • Having patience and tact.
  • Being mature.
  • Having a willingness to take responsibility.
  • Having the ability to cope with distressing situations and to remain calm in stressful situations.
  • Being able to counsel and having listening and general communication skills which are essential.
  • Having excellent people skills.
  • Having the ability to inspire trust and confidence.
  • Having respect for the needs of families from a variety of different cultures.
  • Having strong teamwork skills and the initiative to work alone.
  • Having physical and mental stamina.

Most newly-qualified midwives move quickly to permanent posts within health and social care with potential to progress within their career to clinical specialists, consultant midwives, practice and development roles, quality assurance or management roles. On the career framework midwives are a level 5, this is the level most registered practitioners in their first and second post-registration/professional qualifications jobs.

Midwives usually work 37.5 hours per week, including evening, weekend and night shifts and they can work in various places including hospital maternity units, GP surgeries, Midwife led Units and Birth Centres. In some hospitals/NHS Trusts you would split your time between working in the community and working in hospitals, or rotate between antenatal, delivery and postnatal tasks every 6 months.

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        The job role of a nurse is to plan and provide medical and nursing care to patients in hospital, at home or in other settings who are suffering who are suffering from both chronic and acute physical or mental ill health. The responsibilities of a nurse include; assessing and planning nursing care requirements, providing pre and post operation care, monitoring and administering medication and IV infusions, taking patient samples, pulses, temperatures and blood pressure. Nurses write records, supervise junior staff, organizing workloads, provide emotional support to patients and relatives and tutor student nurses.

        Currently these are no national minimum ...

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