Studying at York
Autonomous Midwifery: Leadership & Practice - HEA00157H
- Department: Health Sciences
- Module co-ordinator: Ms. Helen Recchia
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 1 2024-25 |
Module aims
Note: This document uses the word 'women’ throughout. This should be taken to include people who do not
identify as women but are pregnant or who have given birth.
Consolidate, extend and critically review the professional responsibilities of a registered midwife as lead
professional:
providing universal and additional care to women and families
carrying a midwifery caseload
providing continuity of care and carer.
Extend and critically evaluate decision making skills in complex and challenging situations.
Critically evaluate concepts, approaches and styles of leadership and management within contemporary
midwifery, maternity and health care.
Module learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. Critically evaluate the professional responsibilities of a registered midwife as lead professional
a. providing universal and additional care to women and families
b. carrying a midwifery caseload
c. providing continuity of care and carer.
2. Exercise judgement and critically evaluate decision making in a range of complex and challenging
situations.
3. Critically evaluate and apply concepts, approaches and styles of leadership within contemporary
midwifery, maternity and health care.
Module content
Content includes: caseload holding; continuity of care and carer; decision making in routine, complex and
challenging situations; understanding of influences on own judgements, recognising & addressing personal and
external factors that influence decision making; principles of courage, integrity, transparency, and the
professional duty of candour, recognising and reporting situations, behaviours, or errors that could result in
sub-standard care, dysfunctional attitudes and behaviour, ineffective team working, or adverse outcomes; safe
& effective leadership & management of midwifery care - including prioritisation, delegation and assignment of
care responsibilities to others; medicines optimisation; positive leadership and role modelling guiding,
supporting, motivating, and interacting with interdisciplinary team; cultural and media influences on public and
professional understanding; perinatal loss, maternal death and bereavement - working in partnership with
women, partner, family and interdiscip;linary/multi agency teams to provide compassionate, empathetic,
respectful and dignified care; themes within UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) University Standards
mapped to this module.
Please also see detailed mapping of this module content to NMC (2019) Standards of proficiency for midwives
for the programme.
Indicative assessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay : Written case study |
N/A | 100 |
Special assessment rules
Non-compensatable
Indicative reassessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay : Written case study |
N/A | 100 |
Module feedback
Written feedback for the summative assessment is provided on the standard proforma, within the timescale
specified in the programme handbook
Indicative reading
Ashton, D. et al. (Eds). (2017). How to be a nurse or midwife leader. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Begley, K. Daley, D., Panda, S. and Begley, C. (2019). Shared decision making in maternity care: Acknowledging
and overcoming epistemic defeaters, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 25 (6):
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jep.13243.
Barr, J. and Dowding, L. (2019). Leadership in healthcare. (4th ed). London: SAGE.
Gopee, N. (2022). Leading and managing healthcare. London: SAGE.
Gopee, N. and Galloway, J. (2017). Leadership and management in healthcare. London: SAGE.
Homer, C., Leap, N., Brodie, P. and Sandall, J. (2019). Midwifery continuity of care. (2nd ed). Australia: Elsevier.
Jefford, E., Fahy, K. and Sundin, D. (2010). A review of the literature: midwifery decision making and birth.
Women and Birth International. 23 (4) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2010.02.001.
Jefford, E. and Jomeen, J. (Eds). (2019). Empowering decision-making in midwifery: a global perspective.
London: Routledge.
Luce, A., Hundley, V. and van Teijlingen, E. (2017). Midwifery, childbirth and the media. London: Springer.
Martyn, J-A., Carey, M.C., Gatford, J.D. and Phillips, N. (2022). Gatford and Phillips’ drug calculations. (10th ed).
Edinburgh: Elsevier.
McInnes, R, Aitken-Arbuckle, A. Lake, S. et al (2020). Implementing continuity of midwifery carer - just a
friendly face? A realist evaluation. BMC Health Services Research 20:L 304
https://dx.doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12913-020-05159-9.
Miller, S. et al. (2016). Beyond too little, too late and too much, too soon: a pathway towards evidence-based,
respectful maternity care worldwide. The Lancet, 388 (10056): 2176-2192.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. [NICE (2022) Shared decision making. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice-guidance/nice-guidelines/shared-decision-
making [Accessed 11 March 2022].
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. [NICE]. (2016). Medicines optimisation. [Online] Available at:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs120 [Accessed 11 March 2022].
Northhouse, P. (2021). Leadership: theory and practice. (9th ed) London: SAGE.
Page, L. and Kitzinger, C. (2019). From medicalisation to humanisation of birth and death. [Online] Available at:
https://commissiononthevalueofdeath.wordpress.com/2019/12/21/from-medicalisation-to-humanisation-of-bir
th-and-death/ [Accessed 11 March 2022].
Renfrew, M.J. et al. (2019). Midwifery is a vital solution—What is holding back global progress? Birth.
https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12442.
Royal College of Midwives. (RCM). (2018). Preceptorship for newly qualified midwives: position statement.
[Online]. Available from:
https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/5528/rcm-position-statement-preceptorship-for-newly-qualified-midwives.pdf
[Accessed 11 March 2022].
Royal College of Midwives. (RCM). (2019). Strengthening midwifery leadership: a manifesto for better maternity
care. [Online]. Available from:
https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/3527/strengthening-midwifery-leadership-a4-12pp_7-online-3.pdf [Accessed
11 March 2022].
Royal College of Midwives. (2021). Making maternity services safer: the role of leadership. The solution series: 2.
[Online]. Available from:
https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/5415/the-solution-series-2-making-maternity-services-safer-the-role-of-leaders
hip-v1-interactive.pdf [Accessed 11 March 2022].
Stillbirth & Neonatal Deaths Society (SANDS). [2016 ] Pregnancy loss and the death of a baby. (4th ed). [Online].
Available at: https://www.sands.org.uk/professionals/sands-guidelines-4th-edition [Accessed 11 March 2022].
Stanley, D. (2019). Values-based leadership in healthcare. London: SAGE.
The Kings Fund (2022). What is compassionate leadership? [Online] Available at: [Online] Available at:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/what-is-compassionate-leadership?utm_source=The%20King%27s
%20Fund%20newsletters%20%28main%20account%29&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13006259_NEW
SL_HMP%202022-02-22&dm_i=21A8,7QROZ,2D7X3E,VKH5J,1
[Accessed 11 March 2022].
Thompson, N. (2016). The authentic leader. London: Palgrave.