Midwifery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Midwifery - Essay Example The NHS Modernization Agency, which was just recently superseded by NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, was established to facilitate the modernization of health services and the improvement of the patients' experiences and outcomes of health care. With the establishment of the Agency was of course the establishment of specific themes, which in turn, were targeted towards NHS' goals (NHS, 2006). The establishment of such themes is expected to make an impact in everything which are affiliated with health care, most specifically the patients and the workers. The midwives, being medical practitioners themselves are affected by these themes both in positive and negative ways (NHS, 2006). One of the themes emphasized in by the NHS Modernisation Agency was that about the Workforce. Based on this theme, the attempt to modernize the Health Care system would entail the effective use of staff, the attraction of staff and the retention and development of staff. Under the effective use of staff, it is important for the Health Care system to meet the changing demands imposed by the erratic nature of the field by achieving a balance between the workers' skills and service demands (NHS, 2006). According to NHS (2006), to achieve the balance, flexibility and skills are necessary in their workforce. These requirements put the status of midwives in both the advantaged and disadvantaged. As the role of midwives is concentrated on child delivery concerns, this puts them in the advantageous position as well as gives them specialization in which aspect of health care, they are supposedly the only ones sought after. If "balance," is more a function of skill than flexibility, then the power to handle delivery becomes exclusive only to physicians, midwives, and no one else's'. However, the opposite is true otherwise. Flexibility entails the knowledge, experience, trust and ability to perform and be responsible to do more than a single duty. It is not enough that a person has the knowledge and ability to perform duties. It is necessary that the person has the experience and has the legal responsibility for possible miscalculations. This is what is lacking in the midwife profession. If only "balance" is a matter of specialization, knowledge and ability, midwives could be having the advantage over other health care professionals. But since "balance" is also a matter of flexibility, then other health care professionals, specifically, the nurses are gaining the upper hand. Nurses, as it is known, can do assessment, prescription, as well as handling of child delivery, all within the scope of their licenses. Midwives cannot prescribe. They could only handle child delivery, the women's and children's health after birth. In other words, nurses can always act as midwives while midwives cannot act as nurses. The Workforce theme of the NHS modernization promotes independence, competition and thus, improved service given by the health care workers. This is a result of the development of appraisal and performance structure in hospitals based on standards. The results of such appraisals could then be used as basis for matching competencies with specific roles within the framework of the institution. This brings back the subject on specialization. The matching of competencies would be useless without any