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Midlands
Welcome to the Midlands page for student nurses, midwives and trainee nursing associates. This page will contain useful information and resources from the regional nursing and midwifery team.
Meet Carol Love-Mecrow, Regional Head of Nursing and Midwifery, Midlands
Carol Love-Mecrow has been a nurse for almost 37 years; starting her nurse training at the Dudley and Stourbridge School of Nursing in 1986 at the age of 18. Since qualifying she has held several senior nursing and educational roles including her current role.
All of Carol’s career has been in Dudley, a fact that she is extremely proud of and feels that this has given her insight into the needs of people in this area and the factors that affect their health requirements. In addition, it has enabled her to be instrumental in the development of healthcare professionals working in the region.
As a senior nurse from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background Carol wants to inspire other staff to visualise what they could achieve and has spent a lot of her time supporting and mentoring colleagues to enable them to recognise and achieve their full potential.
Carol is proud to be a nurse and to be part of the development of the future nursing and midwifery workforce.
Twitter: @MecrowLove
Message from the regional team:
As a team we are keen to support new ideas that will develop our workforce and ensure the highest standards of patient safety; working with colleagues across the midlands to enhance and develop nursing, AHPs and midwifery careers now and going forward.
For regular updates from the nursing and midwifery team in the region, follow us on twitter.
Jackie Brocklehurst – Deputy Regional Head of Nursing and Midwifery
Jackie is a registered nurse with over 40 years of experience working in across health and social care. She is an experienced nurse with a diverse background across both the acute and the community setting. Jackie’s commitment to quality care, advocacy for patients, families and carers, and to learning and development was recognised by the Queen’s Nursing Institute by allowing her to use the title Queen’s nurse. Jackie has held several senior nurse leadership positions aligned to workforce education, training, development, and workforce transformation. Jackie now supports the regional head of nursing and midwifery and leads on the 50k nursing expansion for the Midlands. Jackie also manages the clinical nurse and midwifery leaders within the team.
Bridget Hoad – Clinical lead, Nursing
Bridget is a registered nurse and has worked in the NHS since 1985. She is the Regional Clinical Lead for nursing in the Midlands region, and her current portfolio includes nursing associates, postgraduate preregistration nursing programmes as well as mental health, learning disability and autism nursing. Bridget works closely with, and in support of, other nursing and midwifery colleagues in the team on all aspects of the nursing and midwifery workforce, training, and education agenda.
Lucy Johnson – Senior clinical lead, Midwifery
Lucy always wanted to be a midwife and has had several roles in midwifery, when clinical they have predominantly been caring for women and families in the community. Lucy has also developed her management, leadership skills and project management abilities along the way. Her current post as regional clinical lead midwife Midlands has enabled her to pull all these strengths and experiences together and support those currently in practice and the next generation of our future NHS workforce.
Paula Clapham – Primary Care Nurse Workforce Lead
In Paula’s role as she supports the delivery of the primary care nursing workforce. Paula works across the Midlands developing and implementing the regional nursing workforce strategy.
Her responsibilities include; leading the general practice nursing (GPN) workforce agenda within the context of national policy and delivering a wide range of objectives aligned to the workforce transformation priorities; providing leadership and strategic direction with specific responsibility for primary and community nursing across the Midlands; and ensuring programmes of work are aligned to and successfully deliver regional strategic objectives and regulatory compliance.
Ben Atkinson – Programme manager
Ben is the programme manager for the Midlands nursing and midwifery team. He has various roles within the team such as supporting clinicians with programme structures and helping to shape and develop efficiencies. Ben and his team in the project management office also oversee administrative tasks, allowing clinicians to focus on where they can add value and insight.
This section highlights the priorities for the nursing and midwifery team in the Midlands over the next couple of months.
Our team provides expertise into several work areas across the Midlands to ensure we have the right workforce for the future delivery of services, and good quality education and training programmes are in place.
We also contribute to national work programmes such as;
Delivery of the 50k nurses programme - Contributing to the commitment of 50,000 more nurses by supporting programmes such as; Return to Practice; Registered Degree Nurse Apprenticeship (RDNA) programmes; Reducing pre-registration attrition and improving retention (RePAIR) programmes.
Midwifery safety and Expansion programme - As a region we help with shaping the future maternity workforce, supporting the vision in the National Maternity Review, Better Births, by contributing the the midwifery safety programme and the workforce expansion project.
This section includes opportunities and upcoming events that you can get involved with.
We are currently hosting quarterly student council meetings, chaired by one of our nursing fellows. If you are are interested in joining our council or finding out more, please get in contact via email.