Sharon Hadley

Sharon has been a midwife since 2002 where she worked clinically in all areas of midwifery including the labour ward, postnatal wards, community and both alongside and free standing MLU’s. During this time Sharon also worked for 12 months in a sure start children’s centre assisting parents to be with antenatal education and postnatal care and infant feeding.

As a midwife she has undertaken various courses during her clinical career such as HDU, bereavement, IV/cannulation and then NLS (2008/2012) and ILS (2013/2014) as well maintaining all midwifery mandatory training  and externals course to ensure her midwifery skills were up to date. External courses she has attended include ALSO (2015) CTG masterclass (2016) and Baby lifeline courses: Critical maternal care (2016) and community obstetric emergencies (2016) whereby, following the courses, she now teaches on when able to.

In 2014 Sharon entered education becoming a midwifery lecturer at Birmingham City University (BCU) where her role included teaching on a variety of modules, teaching simulation and being a cohort leader and tutor to personal students. During her time as lecturer Sharon obtained a PG cert qualification in higher education, progressed to a senior teaching fellow and in 2018 completed a master’s in Education. In addition to her educational role at BCU Sharon became and is still currently an external examiner for Swansea University where the role involves moderating the processes of assessment to ensure quality assurance is met. As part of her masters she completed modules in research and leadership which facilitated in her application for a senior clinical role back in the NHS.

Sharon returned to a clinical role in 2017 as the ‘Lead Midwife for Normality’ a role that was created to improve the care provision for women and their families within maternity at Walsall Manor NHS trust. During her time at Walsall she was responsible for supporting midwives with empowering women to have choices such as water birth, use of telemetry, aromatherapy and the use of birthing aids as opposed to being previously highly medically led. Sharon liaised with all members of the MDT to consider unnecessary interventions. She reconfigured a VBAC clinic and implemented a birth options clinic which, along with daily caesarean section reviews and weekly CTG reviews assisted with a reduction in unnecessary medical interventions.  As well as holding a clinical role Sharon maintained her teaching of midwifery both externally with Baby lifeline and internally teaching normality to midwives, MSW’s and junior doctors and assisted with the mandatory midwifery PROMPT training. She worked with all members of the MDT and was part of a developed Human factors faculty where they ran regular skills and simulation and won funding from patient safety collaborative which extended the training in all areas to facilitate patient safety and improve the culture which again was identified by the CQC as hierarchical. Sharon worked clinically within her role seeing women at clinics, on the labour ward if staffing required, whereby she supported staff where necessary in order to maintain credibility when leading change.

Due to a change in personal circumstances, Sharon returned into education part time as a senior midwifery lecturer and continues to do clinical bank to suit her role and family. She also continues to provide hypnobirthing privately to support women’s choices in birth. Sharon plans to continue teaching continuity of carer workshops to allow NHS trusts to implement the service fully and she is hoping that the students at BCU will benefit from the theory of and working in a midwifery model that improves care both physically and psychologically. Sharon re validated with the NMC in August 2020 and is currently up to date with all of her required midwifery mandatory training.

Sharon lives with her husband and children and in her spare time enjoys swimming, reading, walking their family dog and meditation for relaxation.