Maternity Telephone Line Midwife

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced midwife to join the Maternity Triage Team as a Maternity Telephone Advice Line Midwife. This role is central to delivering safe, responsive, and compassionate maternity care through high-quality telephone triage and clinical assessment.

The post holder will work autonomously within a busy maternity service, providing timely clinical advice, risk assessment, reassurance, and escalation for women and birthing people contacting the maternity service with antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal concerns. Using structured maternity triage frameworks and evidence-based guidance, the midwife will determine urgency, support appropriate decision-making, and coordinate onward care where required.

The role requires excellent communication, clinical judgement, and documentation skills, with a strong focus on patient safety, experience, and continuity of care. The post holder will work closely with multidisciplinary teams to ensure effective escalation and seamless pathways, while contributing to service improvement, audit, and quality initiatives. This is an ideal opportunity for a confident Band 6 midwife seeking to develop advanced triage, leadership, and decision-making skills within maternity services.

Job description

Provide safe, timely, and evidencebased telephone triage and clinical assessment for clients and birthing partners contacting the maternity service with antenatal, intrapartum, or postnatal concerns.

Undertake structured remote clinical assessments using BSOTS framework, including accurate historytaking, symptom analysis, risk identification, and prioritisation of care.

Make autonomous clinical decisions regarding advice, reassurance, selfcare, urgent attendance, or escalation to senior clinicians in line with local and national guidelines.

Deliver clear, individualised advice and safetynetting, ensuring women understand when and how to seek further help and feel confident in the guidance provided.

Recognise and respond appropriately to clinical deterioration, redflag symptoms, and safeguarding concerns, escalating promptly to obstetric, senior midwifery, or emergency services as required.

Maintain accurate, contemporaneous documentation of all telephone contacts, assessments, decisions, advice, and escalation in line with NMC standards and trust policy.

Liaise effectively with multidisciplinary teams, including labour ward coordinators, obstetricians, day assessment units, community midwives, neonatal teams, and emergency services to ensure seamless care pathways.

Support the safe flow and coordination of maternity services by directing women to the most appropriate care setting and reducing unnecessary attendances while prioritising safety.

Provide emotional support, reassurance, and compassionate communication, ensuring women feel listened to, respected, and involved in decisions about their care.

Act as a professional role model, supporting junior staff, students, and new team members in telephone triage practice, documentation standards, and escalation processes.

Contribute to clinical governance, including incident reporting, reflective practice, audit participation, and learning from feedback, complaints, and adverse events.

Participate in service development, audit, and quality improvement initiatives related to maternity triage activity, outcomes, patient experience, and safety.

Ensure practice is compliant with NHS, NICE, CNST, SBLCBv3, and trustwide maternity safety standards, contributing to a culture of continuous improvement and kindness.

Maintain own professional development, competency, and mandatory training relevant to maternity triage and remote clinical decisionmaking.

Clinical

Undertake comprehensive remote clinical assessments of women and birthing people contacting the maternity service, using structured maternity triage BSOTS frameworks

Perform timely telephone risk assessment to identify urgency, clinical acuity, redflag symptoms, and safeguarding concerns, determining the appropriate level of care required.

Assess a wide range of antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal presentations, including but not limited to: Reduced or altered fetal movements, Abdominal pain or contractions, Vaginal bleeding or discharge, Possible rupture of membranes, Hypertensive symptoms, Postnatal complications or concerns, Complex obstetric or medical risk factors

Use advanced clinical judgement to provide appropriate advice, reassurance, selfcare guidance, or direction to attend for facetoface assessment.

Deliver clear, individualised safetynetting advice, ensuring women understand symptoms requiring urgent review and how to reaccess care.

Identify and respond promptly to clinical deterioration, escalating concerns to senior midwives, obstetricians, or emergency services in line with local escalation pathways.

Coordinate and facilitate onward referral and admission to appropriate maternity or emergency care settings, ensuring timely and safe transfer of care.

Review available clinical records and relevant history during telephone assessment to inform decisionmaking and care planning.

Ensure accurate, contemporaneous documentation of all telephone contacts, assessments, advice, decisions, and escalation in line with NMC standards and trust policy.

Apply national and local clinical guidelines, including NICE, SBLCBv3, CNST, and trust maternity triage policies, to all clinical decisionmaking.

Provide clinically safe reassurance where appropriate, balancing reassurance with vigilance to avoid missed or delayed diagnosis.

Maintain awareness of capacity and acuity across maternity services (e.g. triage, DAU, labour ward) to support safe and effective clinical flow.

Contribute to the delivery of a safe, responsive, and womancentred triage service, ensuring equity of access and inclusive care.

Managerial

Support the daytoday coordination and safe running of the maternity telephone advice line service.

Prioritise triage activity and escalate staffing, capacity, or safety concerns to senior midwifery leadership as required.

Act as a clinical and operational support for staff undertaking telephone triage, providing guidance on escalation and documentation standards.

Contribute to rota cover and service continuity, identifying and raising risks to safe staffing.

Promote and maintain high standards of clinical documentation, accountability, and governance within telephone triage.

Support incident reporting, review, and learning, contributing to service improvement and quality assurance.

Participate in audit, service evaluation, and quality improvement related to telephone triage activity and outcomes.

Support the implementation of policies, SOPs, and pathways relevant to maternity telephone triage.

Provide leadership, supervision, and support to junior staff and students, fostering a positive and compassionate team culture.

Leadership

Provide visible clinical leadership within the maternity telephone advice line service, acting as a role model for safe, compassionate, and evidencebased practice.

Support and mentor junior staff and students, promoting confidence and consistency in telephone triage decisionmaking.

Champion high standards of communication, professionalism, and documentation across the triage service.

Foster a positive culture of learning, reflection, and kindness, encouraging learning from incidents, feedback, and patient experience.

Contribute to service improvement and quality initiatives, supporting changes that enhance safety, flow, and patient experience.

Person specification

Application and Interview

Essential

• NMC registered
• Evidence of Professional development
• Demonstrates a sensitive approach to the needs of women and their families.
• Able to work in a multicultural environment.
• Demonstrates ability as an autonomous midwife in the acute setting
• Extensive post registration experience

Desirable

• Experience Working within triage or Day assessment unit
• Experience of midwifery research and audit
• Has knowledge of Trust's Policies and Procedures
• Experience of taking charge of the ward/ unit

Skills and Ability

Essential

• Good verbal and written skills
• Well-presented and fully completed application with valid reasons for applying for the post

Desirable

• HDU course

About the employer

Croydon Health Services NHS Trust provides hospital and community services across Croydon through a range of clinics and specialist centres. Formed in August 2010 from the integration of Croydon Community Health Services and Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust, we employ around 4,100 staff serving a diverse population of over 360,000 people.

Our main site, Croydon University Hospital, is one of the busiest in London. We are also leading the way in delivering more healthcare in community settings and people's homes. Our district nursing teams, Allied Health Professionals and community matrons care for people of all ages across the borough.

Like the wider NHS, we are working hard to meet increasing demand. With the right people on board, we continue to innovate and transform our services to provide the highest quality care for local residents. We place strong emphasis on education, training and career development for all staff.

If you want to make a real difference, challenge yourself and be part of a Trust that's shaping local healthcare, Croydon Health Services could be the place for you.

At Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, we are committed to supporting flexible working arrangements. Applicants are encouraged to discuss any flexibility they may need during the recruitment process.