If any more proof was needed of the pressure on midwifery numbers, the NHS England letter to trusts of 13th July “Retaining our nursing midwifery colleagues” from Dame Ruth May DBE the CNO for NHS England confirms that red lights are flashing on staffing dashboards across the country.
The Maternity & Midwifery Forum and its sister online catalogue MATFLIX have been generating video programmes and box sets right through the pandemic to share maternity and midwifery best practice and boost morale.
Originally developed and recorded to help midwives meet and demonstrate the 35 hours of new study needed for revalidation MATFLIX editors quickly discovered that they had created a powerful catalogue of the best speakers and the most interesting topics in maternity. Which when organised in MATFLIX box sets provided short effective time saving tools for lecturers and trainers and could be a useful addition in education and now in the battle for retention.
The catalogue includes, for example, a box set for newly qualified midwives and articles on preceptorship, on which NHS England will be publishing more in September 2022.
If trusts are searching for new tools to support the retention of midwifery staff they should consider adding MATFLIX, (video from maternity experts) to their bundle of resources to improve the transition from student to practice, job satisfaction and help with revalidation and career choices.
MATFLIX catalogues and box sets are already used by universities to provide extra engagement, motivation and stimulating content with students and staff.
Graduate midwives moving into their preceptorship find the resources useful for building confidence in early career challenges. And many will have been using MATFLIX in university or be familiar with the festivals where the content is recorded without necessarily knowing the name.
The short lectures, presentations and box sets are ideal for supporting intervention conversations with maternity staff.
Trusts can add the MATFLIX training and reflection video boxsets to their digital resources or through OpenAthens or other library functions and use them with staff immediately.
All the box set content has all been curated by senior midwifery editors and lecturers to the standard needed for revalidation with the NMC.
The content is all digital and can be accessed on any internet linked device including mobile phones.
It can be quickly selected from and shared digitally with staff for mid career development or used for presentations to groups or short training and refresher sessions.
Among the lecturers and contributors are many high profile motivational midwifery speakers.
Over the coming year new box sets and over 200 new lectures will be added, providing a constant stream of engaging professional videos.
MATFLIX video box sets are designed to help institutions help midwives, keep up to date, share challenges and best practice, meet their statutory revalidation and reduce the pressure of finding the time externally to demonstrate new learning.
In addition, included with MATFLIX subscriptions are notifications for the free weekly Maternity and Midwifery Hour on topical maternity issues which are accessible on mobile phones. Subscribers also receive the weekly Maternity and Midwifery Forum newsletter which updates everyone on current issues in maternity and midwifery.
If you would like to know more about how to add this to your retention tool kit and add to the bundle of resources to help with job satisfaction, get in touch.
And yes the MATFLIX title is a bit corny, they only thought they were archiving good talks, never expecting they would create one of the biggest maternity and midwifery digital catalogues that would be subscribed to by universities and other institutions as they pushed into the video age. Their new saying is “video is not just for COVID”.
Neil Stewart
Editorial Director
Maternity & Midwifery Forum
For subscription information for institution go to https://www.matflix.co.uk/institutions/ or call +44 (0)20 7324 4330 or email paul@narrowcastmedia.co.uk