How to co-design a prototype of a clinical practice tool: a framework with practical guidance and a case study.

Clinical tools for use in practice-such as medicine reconciliation charts, diagnosis support tools and track-and-trigger charts-are endemic in healthcare, but relatively little attention is given to how to optimise their design. User-centred design approaches and co-design principles offer potential for improving usability and acceptability of clinical tools, but limited practical guidance is currently available. We propose a framework (FRamework for co-dESign of Clinical practice tOols or 'FRESCO') offering practical guidance based on user-centred methods and co-design principles, organised in five steps: (1) establish a multidisciplinary advisory group; (2) develop initial drafts of the prototype; (3) conduct think-aloud usability evaluations; (4) test in clinical simulations; (5) generate a final prototype informed by workshops.

"She was there all the time". A qualitative study exploring how women at higher risk for preterm birth experience midwifery continuity of care.

Problem: There is a paucity of research on experiences and views of women at higher risk of preterm birth of midwifery continuity of care.

Background: Midwifery continuity of care (MCoC) has been associated with improved maternal outcomes and with lower levels of preterm births and stillbirths. The majority of MCoC studies have focused on women without risk factors and little has been published on women with obstetric complexities.

Could a decision support tool be the key to supporting choice for women regarding place of birth?

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of using an innovative decision aid, MyBirthplace, to facilitate shared decision-making regarding place of birth.

Design: A quasi-experimental study comparing pre-test and post-test responses from participants who had access to the intervention.

Setting: A large urban hospital in the south of England.

Exploring the STEP-uP to practice: A survey of UK Lead Midwives for Education views of the STudent midwife Extended Practice Placement during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: to assess the effect of implementation of the extended placement option available to midwifery students during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Online survey open from 2nd June 2020 to 15th July 2020.

Setting: United Kingdom.

Midwives' experiences of cultural competency training and providing perinatal care for migrant women a mixed methods study: Operational Refugee and Migrant Maternal Approach (ORAMMA) project.

Background: The number of international migrants continues to increase worldwide. Depending on their country of origin and migration experience, migrants may be at greater risk of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Having compassionate and culturally competent healthcare providers is essential to optimise perinatal care.

Establishing a Europe-wide foundation for high quality midwifery education: The role of the European Midwives Association (EMA).

A cornerstone of European policy involves freedom of movement of individuals between member countries, which applies equally to those who use and provide maternity care. To promote and support safe, high quality maternity care, minimum standards for midwifery education and practice have been published, including Directives EEC/80/154 and EEC/80/155 which support the recognition of professional qualifications. These Directives established a minimum standard for midwifery education, including the duration and content of theoretical and practical education.

Factors affecting quality of midwifery students learning in the workplace: Results of two ICM congress workshops.

At the 2014 and 2017 International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) conferences, members of the Practice Placements section of the Education Standing Committee (ESC) facilitated 'Education in Clinical Practice' workshops, attended by over 150 participants, reflecting low, middle and high income countries. The participants critically explored how workplace learning might be organised in pre-service midwifery curricula, ensuring achievement of clinical competencies recommended by the ICM and addressed the key issues encountered in providing quality of learning, assessment and supervision in workplace settings. This article discusses the key issues participants identified affecting student learning in the workplace.

Developing a model of midwifery mentorship for Uganda: The MOMENTUM project 2015-2017.

MOMENTUM was a 20 month midwifery twinning project between the Royal College of Midwives UK and the Ugandan Private Midwives Association. It ran from 2015-2017 and was funded by UK-Aid through THET. MOMENTUM aimed to develop a model of mentorship for Ugandan midwifery students.

Service configuration, unit characteristics and variation in intervention rates in a national sample of obstetric units in England: an exploratory analysis.

Objectives: To explore whether service configuration and obstetric unit (OU) characteristics explain variation in OU intervention rates in 'low-risk' women.

Design: Ecological study using funnel plots to explore unit-level variations in adjusted intervention rates and simple linear regression, stratified by parity, to investigate possible associations between unit characteristics/configuration and adjusted intervention rates in planned OU births. Characteristics considered: OU size, presence of an alongside midwifery unit (AMU), proportion of births in the National Health Service (NHS) trust planned in midwifery units or at home and midwifery 'under' staffing.