Staff stories

What does a day in your role look like?

In my senior support worker role, we start off by checking if any of the daily cleaning jobs have not been completed overnight. We then hand out breakfasts to all patients and take their orders for lunch and supper. Throughout the morning, we restock the ward with gloves, thermometer probes, incontinence pads, and all equipment. If any women are not being discharged, we change their beds for them.

We help women mobilise and assist with personal care if needed. We do daily checks on the babies on the ward which involves a set of observations, stripping them from head to toe and checking them over. We report anything unusual to the midwives in charge. We perform blood sugar tests on the women in our care and on babies. We remove catheters and perform urine analysis. We do full sets of observations of the women in our care and take blood samples from them.

We do oxygen checks on babies in the first 12 hours of life, we also spend a large part of our day supporting with feeding, both bottle and breast. We show women how to hand express, support with breastfeeding, teach them about feeding cues, sterilising equipment and we do bath and bottle demonstrations. We perform temperature checks on the bays and side rooms, and all fridges.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy spending time with new parents and teaching them how to care for their baby. I enjoy helping with breastfeeding and providing support in the night when women sometimes need it most.

What has your experience of career progression in early years been and what support did you receive?

I started as a band 2 maternity care assistant in March 2021. I stayed in that position for 12 months, then progressed to a band 3. I completed my band 3 competencies within 8 weeks and then went on to start the band 3 apprenticeship programme. I have also completed my transitional care training. This involves me working with babies who have been on neonatal intensive care units (NICU) previously or babies who are on antibiotics or require feeding through nasogastric tubes.

What would you say to someone looking to join the service? 

I feel it would be beneficial for someone who is interested in joining the service to do some volunteer work with us. Lots of people think that our job is mostly about holding babies, and it is far from that.

Perhaps having a tour of the different units would be beneficial too, as we work across the postnatal ward, delivery suite and maternity triage. All three areas require us to undertake different tasks so it would be worthwhile learning what we do on each unit. 

Working within maternity is a very rewarding job. I left my previous job of 25 years to join. It was very daunting starting a new career path, but I have thoroughly enjoyed my journey here.