We support safe staffing in the maternity workforce

Marie trained as a nurse and midwife in Oxford from 1969 to 1974, moving to Nottingham with her husband’s job. Continuing to work full time whilst raising 2 daughters, Marie held several clinical midwifery posts before moving into managerial, audit and informatics posts at local and national levels.

She is co-author of Birthrate Plus® with 34 years of assisting maternity units in the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, New South Wales, and Tasmania to use Birthrate Plus®

Marie is a Director in Birthrate Plus Associates Ltd and together with a small team of senior midwives and administrative staff support maternity services at local and national levels to use the Birthrate Plus® products and services. This involves looking at issues such as real time staffing using acuity tools, midwifery workforce planning and reconfiguration of services.

Richard has over 30 years experience of employment and skills – policy, practice and research, particularly in health and social care.

An economist, he has held a number of positions including working as a researcher in the House of Commons, as Director of Employment Relations for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, as a workforce commissioner for a Strategic Health Authority, as a policy adviser in the Department of Health and director of research institutes firstly at London South Bank University and then Bucks New University.

Widely published, he is currently the Professor of Healthcare Management at King’s College London. He was awarded an MBE for services to health and social care in 2015. He has been a Director of Birthrate Plus Associates since 2014. Outside of work he is a patron of the Science Museum, and an ambassador for the Aching Arms charity and can often be found watching rugby league despite being born in Berkshire.

Nicola joined Birthrate Plus® as Associate Director in September 2021 with a focus on the development of the acuity app programme.

Nicola qualified as a nurse in 1992 and specialised in neonatal nursing until 1998 when she commenced midwifery training. She has held a variety of roles within midwifery including both community and delivery suite matron as well as Head of Midwifery and most recently Director of Midwifery.

She has extensive experience of using the app, particularly in the analysis and reporting of data, knowledge which will support the ongoing development of the acuity tools and their application in practice to support safe staffing for maternity services

I have worked in the NHS for 21 years, working as a rotational midwife, ward manager, Supervisor of Midwives, Matron for Acute midwifery services, CofC lead and Quality Improvement Matron more recently supporting transformation and driving quality standards within maternity service.

Throughout my career I have had a passion and drive to improve and develop the maternity workforce to enable women and their babies a better experience and care from maternity services. During my time with the NHS, I have led on many projects which supported national drivers within maternity, looking at the workforce and changes required to manage the challenges that the future workforce faces. I believe that if we look after our teams and focus on getting establishment settings correct it is possible to have the right staff in the right place at the right time.

During my time as a leader in the NHS I have worked with Birthrate Plus® to implement the Intrapartum tool and develop and role out the ward tool. I have found them to be essential for managing risk and safety in a unit. The tool’s reporting capability is supportive for the senior team to enable quality reports to be produced and shared at Trust Board and within Maternity dashboard reporting.

Tash joined Birthrate Plus in July 2023. She has been a rotational midwife for 28 years and has worked in all areas of midwifery, at ward level as a Deputy Ward Manager and Ward Manager; most recently in an education role. She has extensive use of the ward acuity tool in her management role and good knowledge of the intrapartum tool.

She has a particular interest in education and is keen to develop training tools within the acuity app that midwives will find helpful and be able to support them in everyday work.