Local Clinical Obstetric Lead
Local Clinical Obstetric Lead
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Job Description
Local Clinical Obstetric Lead - Avoiding Brain injury in Childbirth (ABC)
Us
We are health innovation specialists. We work with others to transform healthcare through innovation. We help generate new ideas and innovations or adapt existing ones. We test evaluate and scale the best approaches working with NHS colleagues to implement these solutions in hospitals communities GP practices and beyond. We draw on diverse expertise from healthcare universities industry and communities breaking down silos and creating connections as we build healthcare fit for the future.
Please visit our website to find out more about us our values and how we work.
The Role
UCLPartners are seeking an experienced and dynamic Obstetrician with a strong background in high-risk maternity care education and quality improvement (QI) to join our Clinical Faculty for the new Avoiding Brain Injuries in Childbirth (ABC) Programme. This national initiative aims to significantly reduce avoidable brain injuries during childbirth by 2027 through improved clinical practice teamwork and communication.
This role is pivotal in promoting the delivery of safe high-quality care while supporting a positive collaborative culture that enhances outcomes for women birthing people and their families. The successful candidate will demonstrate clinical excellence leadership capabilities and a passion for supporting professional development and continuous improvement within maternity services.
The ABC Programme focuses on two key clinical challenges:
- Detecting and responding to fetal deterioration during labour (IFD)
- Managing impacted fetal head at caesarean birth (IFH)
By implementing the tools with structured training were striving to improve outcomes and experiences for mothers babies and families across England. If successful this programme could reduce litigation costs by up to 1.4 billion annually alongside significant improvement in care quality. More details can be found here.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide clinical leadership to the implementation of the programme across the region
- Deliver training to Trust or site lead s on managing intrapartum fetal deterioration (IFD) and impacted fetal head (IFH) ensuring fidelity to the ABC Programme methods.
- Provide ongoing coaching and support (both informal remote support and formal on-site supervision) to Trust training leads to ensure continuous adherence to ABC training methods.
- Support visits to individual Trusts/sites to oversee and validate training delivery.
- Collaborate closely with Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) and maternity colleagues offering clinical insight to support implementation quality improvement initiatives and alignment with existing maternity safety and deterioration strategies.
- Participate in monthly reporting meetings with the national Perinatal Deterioration Operational Group (PDOG) providing feedback on training and implementation progress.
- Support effective integration of ABC training into mandatory staff training schedules within Trusts/sites
- Support any planned events or cascade of key messages to perinatal colleagues.
- Work alongside the senior project manager at UCLPartners and clinical colleagues in North Central and North East London trusts contributing valuable clinical insights.
- Additional deliverables may be required but will be discussed and agreed prior to initiation of the workstream.
You
Below we have outlined key skills and experience required for this role:
- Experienced Obstetrician (ST6/7 or Consultant) passionate about improving maternity safety
- Understanding of the aims and objectives of the ABC implementation programme
- Strong communicator with experience of delivering multidisciplinary training (ideally to perinatal teams)
- Strong influencing and negotiating skills
- Knowledge of quality improvement methodologies and experience in improving care
- Interest in contributing to national-level improvements in maternity care
- Ability to manage any part-time working hours flexibly to meet the demands of the role
- Ability to travel in your geographic locality
- Experience of a clinical leadership role is desirable
- Experience of working across system boundaries e.g. in leadership role or in change programme is desirable
- Current employment within the NCL/NEL system is desirable.
Terms and Conditions
Job details
The Local Clinical Obstetric Lead will report to the Director of Implementation (UCLPartners Patient Safety Lead. The role is a fixed term position until 31st March 2026 (with possibility of extension) with a 4 hour work week (1 PA). Remuneration for this post is at ST6 or above.
Secondments will be considered. Please discuss the possibility of a secondment with your line manager before applying.
Ideally the postholder will start in early September 2025. Comprehensive subject matter training and support will be provided to you before you begin training others.
The office base will be Hale House 76-78 Portland Place London W1B 1NT and the role will involve regular travel to all North Central and North East London Maternity units (you will attend all trusts in North Central and North East London).
Applicants must have availability Mon-Fri 9am-5pm to work within our team. Ideally this will be a set morning/afternoon session each week.
We offer flexible working arrangements. Our staff combine on-site and remote working enabling us to come together when it matters most and promote a healthy work-life balance.
Please note: The postholder is expected to view this job description as a guide rather than an exact description of all duties and responsibilities which may be subject to change as our work develops.
APPENDIX
*Extract from specification (programme guidance):
Role of Fetal Deterioration Clinical Faculty supporting implementation of Impacted Fetal Head and Intrapartum Fetal Deterioration programmes
Team Definitions for the purpose of the specification:
PDT Perinatal Deterioration Team.
The team within the Maternity and Neonatal Programme within NHS England responsible for the implementation of the Avoiding Brain Injuries in Childbirth programme.
PSC Patient Safety Collaborative.
Delivery partners providing the supportive mechanisms such as Quality Improvement implementation and safety expertise for each site in their HIN geography.
Clinical Faculty
Subject matter experts providing clinical credibility to the delivery of the training component of the ABC programme. The clinical faculty will comprise of Obstetric and Midwives trained to deliver IFH and IFD in a way that continues to provide high fidelity to the ABC approach.
Context
- The Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) collaborative have developed two new pathways/tools to support best practice with regard to intrapartum fetal deterioration (IFD) and the management of impacted fetal head at caesarean section (IFH).
- The training developed by the ABC collaborative for both IFD and IFH has been designed to be delivered and taught by clinicians with expertise in obstetrics and midwifery.
- The model we are employing for this is a cascaded training programme. Where an external training provider (subject to procurement) will provide the training to the clinical faculty and PSCs. The clinical faculty (T3) will in turn provide the training to the leads within the individual organisations (T2) (Trust/Site Leads) who will in turn train their own clinical staff (T1). T2 training can be held in an offsite venue compiling of more than one organisation/site where necessary.
- It is important for the PSCs to also undertake the training not to deliver it but to have a holistic view of both IFH and IFD which will provide both credibility and insight when supporting implementation.
- Based on current expectations and subject to recruitment and procurement requirements:
- External training provider (subject to procurement) to have fully trained all PSC faculty in both tools/programmes by October/November 2025.
- Clinical faculty with support from PSCs to have trained all Trust/site leads (T2) on IFH training to be completed where possible in the financial year 2025/26.
- Clinical faculty with support from PSCs to have trained all Trust/site leads (T2) on IFD training where possible by end of August 2026.
Core roles
- The plan is for clinical faculty supported by PSCs within each of the 15 HINS (once trained) to provide training to Trusts/Site leads on both programmes. The PSCs will be able to provide vital support on quality improvement and implementation techniques along with supporting feedback to the Perinatal Deterioration Operational Group (PDOG). The PSCs are also well placed to advise on alignment of the culture and leadership programme and provide insights from wider deterioration work in maternity and neonatal services.
- This training will be delivered to the Trust/site training/education leads who in turn will deliver the training to the clinical teams.
- The clinical leads will also provide ongoing coaching and support to these Trust leads.
- This coaching will be both in the form of informal remote as well as formal on-site.
- In addition there will be an expectation for the clinical faculty to go and supervise training sessions within the individual Trusts/sites to ensure ongoing fidelity of the training.
- Each team of clinical faculty will require sufficient capacity to support all Trusts/sites within their HIN geography.
Intrapartum Fetal Deterioration (IFD)
- The clinical faculty supported by the PSC will need to structure delivery of training for all Trust/Site leads to start in November and be completed where possible by the end of August 2026.
- The training for IFD will be ongoing alongside IFH over the initial six months but then activity can increase accordingly.
- The clinical faculty supported by the PSC will need to agree with each Trust/site that they will provide staff to be trained and agree to integrate the training into planned mandatory training for the following 18 months for all relevant staff.
Assumptions
- There will be an equal balance of midwifery and obstetric lead time in each PSC team. This provides the credibility to clinical teams and ensure fidelity of the ABC approach is maintained.
- Training of individual Trust/site teams does not necessarily have to be undertaken by midwifery and obstetric leads together and can flex depending on the number of people being trained within each Trust/site.
- Training for each Trust/site team on either programme will take 3-4 hours.
- Following training of Trust/site teams the clinical leads will go back to oversee at least one training session in person (half day minimum per programme within 3 months) and will provide further check in calls with those Trusts/sites (supported by the PSCs).
- For multi-site Trusts it may be appropriate for teams from multiple sites to be trained together.
Impacted Fetal Head (IFH)
- The clinical faculty will need to structure delivery of training for all Trust/Site leads to start in November and be completed where possible by the end of the financial year 2025/26.
- Part of the core offer as well as training will be to provide additional training materials to support the implementation of the IFH training. Where there are existing relevant training materials available these will not be replaced. The Perinatal Deterioration Team are sourcing the required equipment for delivery of the programme. The PSCs and clinical faculty will support the scoping of these requirements with local training/education leads.
- The need for additional training materials will be based on a per site basis and the baseline requirement will be for each site where training may occur to have access to the PROMPT Flex manikin with the Enhanced Caesarean Section Module and a PROMP flex baby.
- The PSC and clinical faculty will need to agree with each Trust/site that they will provide staff to be trained and agree to integrate the training into planned mandatory training for the following 12 months for all relevant staff.
Required Experience:
Senior IC
Employment Type
Contract
