Nicola Clifford is a specialist midwife for the Rosie Bereavement Team and Rainbow Clinic. We wanted to share her incredible story and why she enjoys working at CUH.
What’s your role in our hospitals?
My name is Nicola Clifford, I am the specialist midwife for the Rosie Bereavement Team and Rainbow Clinic. The bereavement team supports people experiencing a pregnancy loss at any stage. The majority of families we meet are on the Delivery Unit but we can also offer help to those on the Daphne Ward, Clinic 24 and occasionally NICU. The Rainbow Clinic provides care to people who are pregnant again following a previous pregnancy loss.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
People often say to me, "I couldn't do your job" but
I consider it an absolute privilege to be able to support families in the days and weeks that follow a pregnancy loss. While we can't take their pain away, we hope to help them navigate those early days
offering memory making and support with the next steps.
I really enjoy supporting colleagues in developing their own skills in the provision of care to bereaved families, whether that's through formal training, supporting them clinically or mentoring students.
Since I joined the bereavement team, CUH has signed up to the National Bereavement Care Pathway which has given me the opportunity to work with colleagues throughout the Trust to improve the services we offer families experiencing a bereavement, including the emergency department and paediatric wards.
The Rainbow Clinic gives me the opportunity to meet families in subsequent pregnancies. A pregnancy after a loss can, understandably, bring a lot of anxiety and we hope to alleviate some of that by having a small team which enables us to develop effective, supportive relationships with those we meet.
Tell us a bit about your CUH journey – when did you join, what positions have you held here and why you like working at CUH?
I joined CUH almost 15 years ago, in 2008, when I came to the Rosie as a newly qualified midwife, having completed my 3 years midwifery training at Southend Hospital. I spent several years working as a rotational midwife, moving between the delivery unit, birth centre, antenatal and postnatal wards. In 2016 I started a 6 month secondment with the Bereavement and Birth Afterthoughts team which led on to a substantive post with the Birth Afterthoughts team. I continued in that role until December 2021 when I moved into my current role.
What does a usual day look like?
There's no ‘typical’ day, really. If there are patients to be seen in the hospital then the schedule of our day is guided by what input they need from us. There's lots of office based work too, from continued patient care including follow up telephone calls and arranging funerals to service improvement work. That could be completion of audits, liaising with charities and external agencies, developing new resources to support staff and ensuring we are complying with HTA standards.
How do you feel your role benefits our patients?
Pregnancy loss still isn't widely talked about so people can often feel so alone and unsure of what to do, or what needs to be done.
My hope is that our team can sensitively guide families through the decisions that they are suddenly and unexpectedly faced with.