The Scottish clinical supervision model for midwives

Following a change in UK legislation, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) model of statutory supervision for midwives ceased in 2017. In response, the Scottish Government (SG) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) worked with the NHS Health Boards to develop a new employer-led model of clinical supervision. The aim of this new model is to help midwives provide improved services, safer care and improved outcomes for childbearing women and infants in keeping with professional regulation. The new Scottish Clinical Supervision Model is also designed to increase midwives personal wellbeing and help them deal with everyday challenges of clinical practice. This design of supervision is a radical departure from the prior NMC model, given that it incorporates facilitation and coaching methods which teach midwives to respond, reflect, and restore self, and through doing so reduce stress and increase resilience. In an attempt to improve nurturing leadership, the key components of this new model are underpinned by a person-centred approach, during which the supervisor provides unconditional positive regard and empathy towards the supervisee. Equipping midwives to develop contemporary supervision is supported by NES through online education that can be accessed at: https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/education-and-training/by-theme-initiative/maternity-care/about-us/clinical-supervision.aspx