Royal Berkshire midwife shortlisted for prestigious national award

Consultant midwives Christine Harding from the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust and Wendy Randall from Oxford University Hospitals, have been shortlisted for a national award from the British Journal of Midwifery (BJM) for their contribution to Midwifery Education.

The BJM Awards are a prestigious and important part of the midwifery calendar, recognising outstanding achievements in midwifery practice, and celebrating  hard-working individuals and teams in the midwifery profession.  Winners are chosen by a prominent panel of expert judges that is representative of the diversity of disciplines and organisations that make up the sector. The judges have the knowledge and experience to assess each entry according to its objectives and available resources and budget. 

The pair has been recognised for the developed of an interactive training package for the Intermittent Auscultation (IA) tool (a method of monitoring the baby’s heart rate). The training package will help make IA safer, enable midwives to detect changes in the womb more accurately, and better assess how babies cope with the labour.

Christine explained: “We entered this award because we are very proud of our training package and want to share it with as many of our professional colleagues as possible. We feel that there has never been such a robust training package for IA, and this is vital for ensuring safe maternity car.

Wendy added: “We would like to thank Alan Inglis, Senior Simulation Technician at Oxford Simulation, Teaching and Research (OXSTAR), for helping us prepare the sound for the assessment - without his skills and patience, this would not have been possible.

“We also are grateful to Oxford Academic Health Sciences Network who have supported our training programme.  We hope that the BJM awards will raise the profile of our training and that many NHS and Universities will see the value of our package.”

The award winners will be revealed in an evening ceremony taking place on 13 February at The Queens Hotel, Leeds.

4 February 2019