I want to train to be a midwife...

[MoreSpamThanGlam]

Last week I went to see a "careers advisor" to find out about access to nursing to become a midwife and the best he could do was continually push and push for me to be a volunteer to drive elderly patients to and from the hospital.

I have just been trawling the net for where to start and cannot find a thing...any ideas?

I am a reasonably intelligent person, but unfortunately I messed about so much at school that I have very few GCSEs. So I know that I will have to start right at the bottom of the pile.

Hi there,

You will need to do an access to healthcare course. Contact your local college. I believe you come out with a Access to Higher Education Certificate. I would suggest starting there. I think these courses are usually free.

Try this www.learndirect-advice.co.uk/helpwithyourcareer/jobprofiles/profiles/profile326/ for advice.

You don't need to do your RGN training first these days and can enter midwifery directly. You may need to do an access course if you've no academic qualifications yet.

Good luck

I really wanted to do this too but was discouraged by the fact that I thought there were too many midwives and not enough jobs (I could be wrong though and will read this thread with interest).

Following this, midiwfery is a three year course and you come out with either a diploma or degree in Midiwfery depending on which pathway you take. So you are looking at at least four years full time education untill you qualify, or longer if you go part time. Most universities run the course part time as well as most midwifery/nursing students are mature students.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

You can either look into doing qualifications in night school but it might be easier for you to get in via the Access course route.

I know that there have been posted on MN who have gone down this route.

Good luck!!!

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The nursing conversion course and diploma are being phased out so it is just the degree now virtually everywhere.

I think it would be best to find out which Universities offer the Midwifery degree course (don't think that Midwifery offers a diploma option, tbh) and call them directly or visit them on their open days...they will be able to tell you which courses you need to take in advance, etc...!

However, the point made earlier, sadly, is the truth, there are more midwifes tehn there is employment (not that it means there are actually enough midwifes, of course...but that is another story).

Have you considered becoming a Doula?

The thing I like about our local midwifery course is that although they only take on a very small number of students each year, they do it knowing that they should all be able to find jobs when they graduate. It seems to be the universities where they have very large cohorts that struggle to find jobs.

I definately want to be a midife, regardless of the job ops.

Thanks for all your responses, much appreciated.

I have got the prospectus from the local college - it seems there is no such thing as access to nursing courses. There is a BTEC but I need to find out exactly what qualifications I did get whilst i was at school, and I cant remember (so long ago). How do I find that out? Thanks again.

PS - I f I cant get a job here well then I will probably emigrate to somewhere that does want me - but thats a long way off.

good on ya, spam.
im thinking of this too.
think id like to be an independent. if dps business works out id be lucky enough to be able to afford to take on clients in real need of one but who couldnt ordinarily afford an independent mw.

and id love to have a skill worth taking on a vso year or something when the kids are older. right now id be more of a hindrance than a help lol.

Spam, do you have any certificates from school? If not, then maybe getting in contact with your Secondary school and they should be able to tell you if they still have the records there or where you could get access to them, I suppose.

Midwifery is very difficult to get into I believe - its very competitive. They are reducing the number of student midwives.

However that said I live in Wales and know it's a different system here. We have 3 Uni's in South Wales & each take about 20 odd student midwives a year, not sure if that is 1 or 2 intakes a year though.

Where do you live OP? Maybe phoning around the Uni/s you want to go to and ask them about intake & how easy/difficult it is to get in.

You need to contact universities that you would be interested i ntraining at and as them what qualifications they would recomend you do - different unis have different preferences. Most unis are stopping the diploma and only offerring degree. My uni is not keen on access courses and prefers GCSEs and a-levels. You will need maths and english GCSE or some sort of literacy/nemeracy cert - again depending on which uni.

The job situation is dire - I qualify in a few weeks and am having to apply for jobs as a healthcare assistant.

Stripey, that sounds awful, all that time you spend on going to Uni and then there is only HCA Jobs going

I know, am quite depressed about it.

Midwifery is getting harder and harder to get into. At the uni I trained at, an Access certificate guaranteed and interview but not anymore. The grades required are now higher too and during an interview EVERYTHING is given a score! Spend your time getting A levels, do some volunteering at a local hospital and see if you could shadow a community midwife for a while. Do lots of research around midwifery and current hot topics, collect articles you've read which you've found particularly interesting. Finally, if you can afford it, subscribe to a journal such as The Practising Midwife. Its the most easy to read and is interesting for non midwifery bods too!

www.practisingmidwife.co.uk/page.php?id=1