The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) launched the Fifth Edition of its Midwife Registration Programmes Standards and Requirements during an online event in early June.
NMBI CEO, Sheila McClelland spoke at the launch event, which was attended by 60 academic and clinical midwifery leaders from across Ireland. Ms McClelland highlighted the importance of standards and requirements for education bodies providing midwifery education programmes. She also thanked all those who had helped to develop the document including the NMBI Midwives Committee and NMBI’s Director of Midwifery Dawn Johnston.
Ms Johnston highlighted the main changes to the new edition. She was keen to note that these standards and requirements are now aligned, where possible, with the Nurse Registration Programmes Standards and Requirements. There are new updates to the ICM definition of a midwife within the document and Section 3 was extended from five headings to seven. The ratio of lecturer to student was defined along with details on grievance policies. The site inspection report has been standardised across site inspections and includes sections on commendations, conditions and recommendations.
Portiuncula University Hospital Director of Midwifery, Deirdre Naughton provided insight into how the standards and requirements had worked during the site inspection process as she had been a member of the inspector panel for some time and could advocate for the improvement.
She told colleagues that the partnership approach was a welcome initiative from the healthcare partners during inspection. She also briefly outlined what an inspector would now look for.
“The ability for education bodies and healthcare partners to showcase developments and the opportunity for acknowledgement of the wider team and their contributions has been a refreshing outcome of the new process,” said Ms Naughton.
A number of those in attendance commended the Board on the consultation and proof of concept process that was conducted at the start of the project. The session concluded with some brief questions and answers.