The impact of maternity unit culture on student midwives’ learning experience

Applications accepted all year round
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

About the Project

The interest in investigating UK maternity care quality is ongoing. Initiated by the Kirkup (2015) report highlighting the improper maternity care at Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, followed by the Ockenden (2022) report on maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust, and the more recent Kirkup (2022) report on East Kent, and the anticipated report on Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, it is clear that maternity care culture is a serious and ongoing concern. These reports focus on the impact of culture on the outcomes for women, people and their babies, and the clinical staff. Given the NMC (2023) requirement for all midwifery learners to spend 50% of their programme in practice, it is an opportune time to look further into the concerns on culture for these learners.

The recent independent practice learning review commissioned by the NMC (Palmer et al, 2024) highlights the impact of an organisations culture for learners, citing negative team and organisational culture as a potential barrier to learning. This report also supports the known connection between practice learning environment quality and the care quality that learners go on to provide well beyond graduation. Whilst this identifies broad organisational concerns, there is yet to be an in-depth exploration of the experiences of learners themselves. The available literature on this topic is limited, out-dated or unrelated to UK midwifery practice (Panda et al 2021).

This PhD offers a motivated person the opportunity to explore the impact of maternity unit culture from a learner perspective, and to generate findings and recommendations to ultimately support safer maternity care.

Supervisory Team

• Director of Studies: Dr Lucy Hope, Principal Lecturer in Midwifery
• Supervisors: Dr Tina Dennis, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery
• Research Group: Health Professions Education and Practice

Application Process

To begin the application process please go to: https://www.worc.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/applying-for-a-phd/.

The Interview

All successful applicants will be offered an interview with the proposed Supervisory Team. You will be contacted by a member of the Doctoral School Team to find a suitable date. Interviews can be conducted in person or over Microsoft Teams.

Funding your PhD

For information about Doctoral Loans please visit: https://www.worc.ac.uk/study/fees-and-finance/doctoral-loans.aspx

During your PhD you can access the Research Conference Support Scheme to support the costs of presenting your research at an external conference.

For further information or an informal discussion on this project, please contact Dr Lucy Hope l.hope@worc.ac.uk