Health Education England is pleased to announce the introduction of the Registered Midwife Degree Apprenticeship to be trialled across three test site universities early next year.
Following the development of the apprenticeship standard with the midwifery trailblazer group, the following universities have been appointed to offer the degree level course.
Universities of Greenwich, West London and Bedfordshire will offer the programme in early 2020 to those who are already employed as Maternity Support Workers or in other healthcare roles who hold the required entry criteria to train as midwives through an apprenticeship route.
University of Greenwich
4 year programme in partnership with 6 provider trusts with 2 apprentices planned in each and up to 6 in the largest trust totalling a cohort of 18. Start date 20th January 2020.
University of West London
3 year programme in partnership with 3 provider trusts totalling 8 – 10 across 2 cohorts. Start dates 30th March 2020 (London) and 31st March 2020 (Reading).
University of Bedfordshire
20 month Registered Nurse to Registered Midwife programme in partnership with 3 provider trusts with a planned cohort of 8 – 10. Start date February 2020.
Employers can use their apprenticeship levy to support their staff through the degree programme and this route provides an excellent opportunity to grow your own and create future pathways for midwifery. The test sites have engaged local providers and we expect approximately 25 – 30 to start in this financial year against the current apprenticeship standard, London has high interest as this represents the opportunity to retain staff through developing local MSWs (maternity support workers) who are likely to remain in the Trust on qualification as opposed to the high turnover of traditional BSc students on qualification.
Whilst the challenge of backfilling the apprentices for off the job time as with a number of healthcare apprenticeships remains, interest has been high and we believe the test site outcomes will provide good practice exemplars for those AEIs and providers who wish to embark on this route in the future.
The NMC Future Midwife Standards were approved at NMC Council last week and the new trailblazer group against those standards commences 14th November 2019 .
There has been a piece in the Nursing Times about the apprenticeships and all interested providers have been directed via Health Education England or the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education website to contact the HEIs directly and we are planning further comms and case studies once the students commence on programme and an article in the RCM in the New year also. University of Greenwich and Health Education England have an abstract accepted at the International confederation of midwives in June 2020 which will be another vehicle to launch the programme positives.
Please email Healthcare.Trailblazer@skillsforhealth.org.uk for any queries.