Midwifery Support Worker’s Journal Club shortlisted for national excellence prize
Last year, Robert Moore, Practice Development Midwife at our Women’s Hospital, set up the Maternity Support Worker (MSW) virtual Journal Club, which has now been shortlisted for a prestigious national prize.
It's a monthly newsletter that goes out to MSW’s across the country at different Trusts and each edition features new academic maternity articles to encourage wider learning and make academic research papers more accessible.
Robert’s hard work has resulted in the MSW Journal Club being shortlisted as a finalist for the Royal College of Midwifery Excellence in Midwifery for Education & Learning award.
He explained how The Journal Club started: “I had initially found a research article that I thought might be of interest to our Maternity Support Workers here at our Women's Hospital, so I sent out the article along with a short synopsis that I wrote.
“It was really well received, so I started sending it out to other people in similar roles to me at other Trusts and it’s grown from there.
“We've seen a huge level of enthusiasm and support across the country and we’ve even had some support from The Royal College of Midwives to host some face-to-face Journal Club meetings too.
“Historically, MSWs haven’t been exposed to some of the academic journals and research, and
the skills to search for them and critique them.
“Many have said they’ve felt excluded from this part of their work, so I wanted to offer up some of the academic learnings in an accessible way.”
Robert officially launched The Journal Club in May 2023 and sends out four midwifery focused articles every month.
In addition to the article, he also includes a short synopsis and some analysis points.
He added: “We wanted to keep it simple and flexible.
“It’s low tech so anyone can access it and people can do that it in their own time and space – as long as you're got a device that can get emails, you’re able to access The Journal Club.”
So far, The Journal Club reaches 300 MSW’s every month across the UK, and from many different NHS Trusts.
Rob added: “It’s been great to see so many NHS Trusts and Maternity Support Workers across
the country get involved.
“We’ve received some really good feedback and a lot of people have said it has helped them to consolidate their learning - helping them learn about other areas not in their direct line of work.”
The focus of the articles picked aim to encourage wider discussion around topics that are generally MSW-focused, but also cover areas they wouldn’t frequently come across in the day-to-day to offer a space for further learning and education.
Some of the previous MSW Journal Club topics have included improving experiences for lesbian parents, breastfeeding experiences of autistic people and experiences of midwifery in English prisons.
Rob said: “I’m thrilled the Journal Club has been recognised and shortlisted.
“It’s been an amazing project to be involved and to see the impact firsthand on MSW’s has been fantastic.
“It’s had such a great response already and I'm excited to see where it will go.”
The RCM Awards 2024 will take place on Friday 18 October in London and will celebrate outstanding achievements in the midwifery profession across the UK.