Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) is the main NHS employer of midwives in Frimley Health & Care. Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is a great place to work and progress your career in the Midwifery profession.

It is the fourth largest trust to deliver maternity services in England, with a Director of Midwifery for the Trust and a dedicated Head of Midwifery at both its Frimley Park and Wexham Park hospital sites, a team of Matrons and Practice Development team to not only support you, but to enable our midwives and support workers to deliver high quality care to all our women and progress the National Maternity Transformation Agenda.

The Trust cares for 9,900 women each year. There are two sites that have both midwifery and obstetric-led services: Frimley Park, which caters for approximately 5,500 women, and; Wexham Park, catering for approximately 4,400 births per year. Both sites have birth centres, en-suite labour rooms, antenatal inpatient beds, postnatal beds, transitional care cots, maternity assessment centre/triage facilities and antenatal outpatient clinics.

There’s never been a more exciting time to build your career at FHFT, one of the country’s largest and most respected hospital trusts. Recently the Trust has invested £150 million in new facilities to create the best environments for patients and staff. The projects include a new state-of-the-art Emergency Assessment Centre at Wexham Park Hospital, a new planned care hospital in Ascot and a £10m upgrade to maternity and gynaecology services at Wexham Park, which opened in January 2018.​

As a midwife at FHFT you will be expected to mirror the values and behaviours of the Trust.

Clinical areas

Midwives work in the maternity services across the following areas and settings:

• Community,
• Antenatal Ward,
• Labour Ward,
• Postnatal Ward,
• Transitional Care Unit,
• Birth Centre,
• Antenatal Clinic,
• Maternity Assessment Centre.

If you’re interested in working as a midwife in any of these clinical areas at FHFT, or for more information or to arrange an informal visit contact:

Frimley Park Hospital - Danielle Perkins - Head of Midwifery - 01252 649899

Wexham Park Hospital - Andrea Anderson - Head of Midwifery - 01753 634542

Nurses have an increasingly important part of delivering care in general practice. In recent years there has been an increasing shift of care from secondary care delivery (in a hospital setting) to primary care (within a general practice setting). This shift provides an exciting environment for nurses, with increasing opportunities to develop and highly achieve within their careers.

Why become a general practice nurse?

The general practice nursing workforce must be at the forefront of leading change by delivering better health outcomes in primary care, and by making primary care ‘the place to be’ for ambitious nurses who deliver world class care and support our population to live well. (Health Education England)

There are opportunities to perform direct patient care including:

• Phlebotomy
• electrocardiograms (ECGs)
• Minor and complex wound management including leg ulcers
• Travel health advice and vaccinations (opens RCN log in page)
• Child immunisations and advice
• Family planning & women’s health including cervical smears (opens RCN log in page)
• Smoking cessation and weight management (open RCN log in page)
• Long term condition management
• Health Assessments

General practice nurses can also have the responsibility to supervise healthcare assistants at their practice. General Practice is also a common placement for student nurses. In addition, general practice nurses have a huge role to showcase to students the advantages of taking a role in primary care. Working in general practices means working with other professionals within a multidisciplinary team including GPs, Musculoskeletal (MSK) specialists, Pharmacists and Paramedic Practitioners.

(Paramedic Practitioners are paramedics who have additional training and skills to deliver wider patient assessments and management. These practitioners work closely with GPs and nurses and are able to diagnose a wide range of conditions and treat many minor injuries and illnesses. They can also refer patients to specialists in the community such as community nurses or social care professionals, and they can also refer patients to hospital specialists.)

There are many routes into General Practice Nursing. If you don’t wish to go to university you may consider working as a healthcare assistant and completing an apprenticeship to become a registered nurse.

Community nurses carry out a huge range of vital work with patients in the community every day and includes district nurses, community matrons and specialist nurses.

District nurses are senior nurses who manage care within a community setting. They lead teams of community nurses and support workers, as well as visiting house-bound patients to provide advice and care such as palliative care, wound management, catheter and continence care and medication support. Further support and development will be available to undertake professional skills.

Community matrons and specialist nurses also work with people in their own homes and in community clinics. These nurses will have undergone additional training in their specialist field; will hold specialist qualifications as well as a prescribing qualification which allows them to prescribe any medication within their scope of practice.

For more information about community nursing see the website of the Queen’s Nursing Institute, whose vision is that “all people are provided with the best possible nursing care, by the right nurse with the right skills, in homes and communities, whenever and wherever it is needed”.

Why become a community nurse?

Community nursing is unique as it allows the nurse to fully embrace holistic care.

You not only get to know the patient, but family, friends, pets and of course the local milkman! You have greater autonomy in the way you treat and manage patients and are usually part of a team of not only community nurses but often other allied health care professionals, voluntary sector and social care.

How do I become a community nurse?

Getting into community nursing couldn’t be easier, as community nursing teams include health care assistants, associate practitioners and registered nurses, and there is information on how to access training for these roles.

Working in healthcare is more than just a job, it’s a passion. And every member of our trust is committed to providing the very best care possible in order to transform the lives of our patients.

We’re not just passionate about our care – we’re also passionate about our staff. We’ll work with you to identify your short and long term career goals, and then provide you with the training and education opportunities you need to fulfil your potential. We also have an array of apprenticeship options, along with strong links to the University of West London, providing training placements and post graduate qualifications.

We are currently looking to talk to anyone who has an interest in mental health nursing, who is recently qualified, is looking to make their next career move, or is considering returning to work.

A career in mental health nursing offers you the chance to make a difference to people’s lives and support them in their process of recovery. Roles are varied but are built on a foundation of developing effective relationships with patients, and their relatives or carers.

Although mental health is your area of specialism, you’ll also get to study and develop knowledge of physical health problems and conditions. This will allow you to help people manage their wider health needs and introduce them to preventative measures to keep them well for longer.

Opportunities for a career in mental health with us are probably more varied than you realise. We offer the chance to work with children or adults, and across specialist services such as veterans, eating disorders, the criminal justice system and perinatal.

You can also choose to work in in-patient (hospital) settings, the community, and in a variety of other areas such as A&E, with the police, and with those who support the homeless.

For further information about working with Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, please contact:

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Or visit the careers section on our website

For further information about working with Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, please visit:

https://www.sabp.nhs.uk/working-for-us

The Older Persons Mental Health Manager at Surrey and Borders Partnership is:

Lovemore Munowenyu

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Tel: 01276 454100

The switchboard number at SABP HQ Leatherhead is 0300 5555 222

You may also find the following sites useful:

• Mental Health Nursing as a career
• More information about mental health
• Mental health services explained

If you’ve ever considered working as a learning disability nurse, are looking to make your next career move in this area, or if you’d like to understand a little bit more about what’s involved, please read on.

This rewarding area will see you working with people with learning disabilities, their families, carers and other health and social care professionals.

We know that people with learning disabilities have greater health care needs, are likely to have multiple conditions and sadly often die prematurely from preventable causes. As a learning disability nurse, you will use your specialist knowledge and skills to work with children and/or adults to reduce health inequalities and offer them the very best physical and mental healthcare, and support their overall wellbeing.

Learning disability nurses work in a variety of settings including community teams, assessment and treatment services, child and adolescent mental health services, paediatric services, school nursing, acute liaison and health facilitation and the criminal justice system. And this list is ever-growing, with learning disability nurses now being recruited into a range of services due to their clinical skill set and person-centred approach to delivering care.

You can expect opportunities for career progression into:

• operational leadership – such as becoming a senior nurse, ward manager or health lead
• advanced clinical roles – such as consultant practitioners, and
• clinical education careers – such as lecturer practitioners and clinical practice educators.

For further information about working with Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, please contact:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Or visit the careers section on the website

Please see here for more information on Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

You may also find the following sites useful:

• Learning Disability nursing as a career
• Learningdisabilitynurse.com
• More information about mental health

Care homes are vital in meeting the needs of people living with health and social care needs and care home nursing offers a specialist and complex career in a changing health and social care environment. ‘Care home’ is a generic term that is defined as “a small institution providing accommodation and care for people who are unable to look after themselves.” The term ‘care home’, therefore, broadly covers all types of residential care facility.

There are two main types of care home:

Residential care homes – provides ‘home-style’, live-in accommodation, with 24 hour-a-day supervised staffing for elderly residents, who may need extra help and support with their personal care.

Nursing homes – equally provide 24 hour care and support, as above, but with added nursing care and assistance for residents who require input from and supervision by a registered nurse, who is in situ to devise and monitor care plans, provide and administer treatment (e.g. injections) and carry out timely medical interventions.

The range of nursing skills required for residents living in care homes includes:

• Clinical interventions
• Advance Care Planning
• Anticipatory Care
• Management of long term conditions
• Complex medication regimens
• Palliative and respite care
• Managing emergencies and identifying deterioration

Collaborative working is key, with residents and families, the local community and primary and social care agencies. Care home nurses are advocates for the people they care for, playing an important role in supporting residents to access the expertise of the wider multidisciplinary team, in order to ensure that they are receiving the full range of health and social care support they need.

Nursing in care homes (goes to RCN log in page)

Benefits of working in care homes within the Frimley Health and Care Integrated Care System (ICS) include bimonthly Care Home Forums for learning and networking opportunities, as well as regular training and development opportunities.

Working as part of the Frimley Health and Care ICS you will be considered a key part of the multidisciplinary team. The EHCH framework (published 29 September 2016) lays out a clear vision for working with care homes to provide joined up primary, community and secondary, social care to residents of care and nursing homes, via a range of in reach services.

Useful Links

The QNI has published a learning resource for nurses new to working in a residential home.

To read more about the role from the perspective of one nurse visit: www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1567712/nurse-reveals-work-care-home-nhs.

Our local community hospitals provide healthcare closer to home and, as we continue to focus on ‘care in the community’, have become the heart of our services, responding to and changing with the local needs.

Community hospital services range from health promotion, assessments, treatments and rehabilitation, right through to end of life care.

Why join a community hospital?

Working in a community hospital setting is the perfect start to a new career in nursing, or for those looking to return to work.

You’ll find your role to be both challenging, with something new to learn every day, and hugely rewarding. You’ll gain valuable experience in a variety of roles and start to make a positive impact within your local community, with the opportunity to become an expert in your chosen speciality.

Our roles offer flexibility in terms of when and how you want to work, giving you the opportunity to develop your skills and your career in a way that works for you.

We’re looking for passionate people to join us as:

• Healthcare assistants
• Nurse associates
• Registered nurses
• Team leads and matrons
• Ward managers
• Advanced clinical practitioners

The passion and commitment of our staff drives the quality services we provide, which visibly transform the lives of individuals, families and entire communities, and gives us pride in everything we do.

So why not join us today?

Information on how to access training for these roles is available.