A midwife working in London has received a national award from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) for her contribution to midwifery.
Amanda Mansfield, a Consultant Midwife at London Ambulance Service has received a prestigious RCM Fellowship. This is an honour given to just a handful of midwives each year.
The Fellowship recognises Amanda’s contributions to midwifery in many areas over 30 years. It particularly focuses on her current role at London Ambulance Service. Here she has improved safety for women during pregnancy, birth and post-natally when using the emergency services.
Amanda has achieved this by developing and delivering educational resources for emergency services staff, from those working in the control room to patient facing clinicians.
Amanda said:
I feel very honoured to be the first pre-hospital Consultant Midwife to be recognised with a RCM fellowship. For many women, pregnancy and birth are normal life events, however occasionally emergencies do occur and they need to be managed quickly to ensure the safety of both mother and baby.
It has been a great privilege to work on developing this aspect of pre-hospital emergency maternity care and also help improve the support and training for emergency services staff in this area. I am overwhelmed by this honour.
Amanda has also led on the strategic delivery of pre-hospital maternity training and has enabled a culture of shared learning with maternity services providers across London.
Amanda’s ambition is that every woman who requires the aid of the emergency services during pregnancy is able to receive maternity care from skilled and compassionate clinicians. In her view this would be best achieved by each ambulance service introducing a lead midwifery role.
Amanda led on the development and implementation of a London-wide ‘Pre-Hospital Maternity Assessment and Screening’ tool, enabling staff to better recognise when women who become unwell during pregnancy require emergency assistance.
Working with the charity, MaMa Academy, Amanda and London Ambulance Service’s control room teams have developed and implemented a communication card to enable an improved response in the emergency situation.
Across London community midwives can access this tool when pregnant women need transferring from a home birth or birth centre care to a hospital. This has helped make the experience better for women and improved efficiency when taking women to hospital.
Amanda has pioneered the role of midwifery leadership within the pre-hospital maternity arena. Her motivation is to ensure that safe maternity care is a key clinical priority in every emergency service and that all ambulance staff have access to the appropriate expertise.
Dr Fenella Wrigley, Chief Medical Officer for London Ambulance Service said:
Receiving this award is a wonderful achievement and recognises Amanda’s dedication, hard work and commitment. Amanda has not only been instrumental in developing our maternity service, a key part of our five year strategy, but her work has helped to improve the maternity care we provide for women and their families.
Katherine Gutteridge, President of the Royal College of Midwives, said:
The Royal College of Midwives is delighted to award this Fellowship to Amanda. Her unique and pioneering work at the London Ambulance Service has led to real improvements in care for women and their babies. She is a worthy recipient of this Fellowship and I congratulate her heartily on this achievement.
Amanda received the Fellowship yesterday at the Royal College of Midwives Education Conference in Bath.
