Perinatal Mental Health Specialist Midwife

This post is only open to internal applicants.

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is delighted to offer a fantastic opportunity to work with us. Please see below for detailed job description of the role.

We have an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic and knowledgeable existing UHS band 7 midwife to apply for the role of Specialist Midwife for Perinatal Mental Health. Are you a midwife passionate about perinatal mental health? Do you want to enhance your skills in supporting the mental health of women and birthing people throughout their maternity journey? Are you committed to providing personalised and compassionate care to women and families with complex social needs? Our maternity service embodies the Trust Values, placing women and their families at the heart of our care and we strive for excellence in everything we do, continually improving and working together. Our maternity team is dedicated to delivering safe, high-quality, and efficient care, regardless of their background or clinical needs, providing you with extensive experience across the entire pregnancy journey.

University Hospital Southampton is one of England's largest acute teaching Trusts, offering a wide range of learning and development opportunities to support your career aspirations. Located on the south coast with an international airport and direct rail links to London, Southampton offers an ideal setting to live and work, with the New Forest, South Downs and Jurassic Coast. We believe that using technology wisely shows strong time management and commitment to innovation. However, personalising your recruitment application to highlight your unique skills and experiences is crucial. Relying too heavily on generic, AI-generated content instead of drawing from your own strengths and accomplishments may lead to your application being rejected if multiple candidates present identical or similar information. At UHS we’re committed to providing a flexible working environment where possible. Whether you are balancing family, study, or your wellbeing with your career, we want to support you so you can help our patients. At UHS, we proudly champion individuality, recognizing that outstanding care is only possible with a diverse, inclusive team. We’re committed to creating an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory environment where everyone feels valued, safe, and empowered to make a meaningful impact in our communities. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences to join us in building a healthcare community where everyone can belong, thrive, and contribute.

In this role, you will support individuals with mental health and other complex needs, improving outcomes and experiences for some of the most vulnerable, including working alongside safeguarding, domestic abuse, and perinatal mental health teams. You will bridge the maternity service with other mental health care providers, including local IAPT providers and specialist mental health teams (MMHS, CMHT, PMHT). You will serve as an expert and role model in perinatal mental health provision of care, providing clinical and professional leadership within the maternity service. Your key responsibilities will include supporting teams, developing and maintaining high standards of care for women and birthing people with mental health complexities during pregnancy and the postnatal period. This role encompasses specialist clinical, consultative, training, practice development, and strategic responsibilities.

Qualifications / training required

• Registered Midwife on relevant part of the NMC register
• Significant clinical experience
• Associate/mentorship qualification or equivalent experience
• Diploma or degree in midwifery
• Evidence of continual professional development
• Leadership training
• Examination of the newborn qualification
• Previous or relevant experience necessary

Relevant and recent clinical experience or with the ability to demonstrate significant experience in midwifery practice and responsibility for managing a clinical team

• Experience of setting and monitoring standards
• Demonstrate specialist expertise underpinned by evidence-based care philosophy
• Evidence of proven leadership and management skills
• Previous involvement of multi-disciplinary team working and multi-agency working across the health and social economy
• Ability to work within a broad, inter-professional team
• Experience of writing protocols, guidelines and integrated care pathways
• High dependency course
• Team leadership role
• Evidence of audit
• Experience of leading change management programmes

Please be advised that this vacancy may close earlier than stated if we receive a large number of applications. We will not accept any applications or queries via agencies, under any circumstances.

Getting to work should be as easy as possible and that’s why we have introduced the UHS travel promise – a commitment from the Trust that we will provide reasonable travel options for every member of staff. Every member of staff can apply for a permit to use our park & ride facility. Eligibility for on-site parking is dependent on the nature and requirement of the role. All staff can also access a range of discounted benefits relating to travel including reduced price bus tickets, purchase of salary sacrifice bikes and ultra-low emission cars.

Equality remains at the centre of our policymaking, service delivery, and employment practice, giving all employees equal opportunity to develop, apply for promotions, and have working arrangements that enable them to achieve a manageable work-life balance. UHS actively promotes a work environment free from harassment and discrimination and provides training for managers and staff to ensure this happens. We also closely monitor recruitment activity, training, development, and employment practices to ensure equality of practice with regard to race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and age.

The Trust is under a duty to protect the public funds it administers, and to this end may use the information you have provided on this form for the prevention and detection of fraud. It may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds for these purposes. The European General Data Protection Regulations enhances individuals’ rights and safeguards all of their data in place under the DPA.

You must have appropriate UK professional registration. This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.