Coaching and mentoring skills: a complement to the professional midwifery advocate role

Workload pressures within midwifery have magnified because of the global pandemic, causing anxiety and stress for healthcare professionals across all settings. The prediction of the retirement time bomb, combined with midwives leaving the profession as a result of burnout, is having a considerable impact on maternity service provision. There is additional recognition of stress factors caused by the changing landscape within maternity services, one of which has been identified as the national implementation of the continuity of care model. The support framework for midwives and student midwives and the continuous improvement process that the advocating for education and quality improvement model is designed to achieve is needed now more than ever in what have become known as unprecedented times. The author is passionate regarding support for student midwives and prior to lockdown, commenced a postgraduate course in coaching and mentoring. The rationale for undertaking this qualification was to enhance professional midwifery advocate skills further. This proved to be beneficial to the development of the professional midwifery advocate services.