Bereavement Lead Midwife

Job summary

The Bereavement Lead Midwife provides compassionate, specialist care and leadership for women and families experiencing pregnancy loss, stillbirth, fetal loss, or neonatal death. Working collaboratively across the multidisciplinary team, the post holder ensures bereavement care is delivered to the highest standards, supporting families through some of the most challenging experiences of their lives.

Responsibilities include coordinating, implementing, and evaluating bereavement care pathways to ensure women and families receive personalised, safe, and effective care. The Bereavement Lead Midwife acts as a specialist resource for midwifery and medical staff, offering guidance, training, and support on the clinical, emotional, psychological, and administrative aspects of bereavement care.

The post holder is responsible for monitoring service quality, promoting continuity of care, and using patient feedback, audit, and learning to drive continuous improvement. They ensure care is delivered in accordance with NMC standards, Trust policies, and organisational values, while championing professional accountability and excellence in practice.

A key aspect of the role is leadership and workforce development, providing supervision, mentorship, and support to staff, fostering a culture of compassionate, family-centred care. The Bereavement Lead Midwife also leads care for women during pregnancies following loss, offering specialist support and reassurance throughout their journey.

Main duties of the job

The Bereavement Lead Midwife provides specialist support to women and families experiencing pregnancy loss, stillbirth, fetal loss, or neonatal death. Working collaboratively with the multidisciplinary team, the post holder is responsible for assessing, planning, delivering, and evaluating high-quality bereavement care, ensuring families receive compassionate, safe, and individualised support. The role includes providing specialist training, guidance, and education to midwifery and medical staff on the clinical, psychological, emotional, and administrative aspects of bereavement care. The post holder acts as a key resource, promoting best practice and ensuring systems are in place to deliver effective, continuous care across the maternity service. The Bereavement Lead Midwife monitors service quality, incorporates patient feedback to drive improvements, and champions professional accountability, ensuring practice aligns with NMC standards, Trust policies, values, and behavioural expectations. They also provide leadership, line management, supervision, and support to staff, enabling them to achieve their full potential and maintain high standards of care. In addition, the post holder leads care for women experiencing a subsequent pregnancy following loss, offering specialist support and reassurance throughout their pregnancy journey.

About us

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One Team One Trust - There are many reasons to work at our Trust. From our commitment to putting people first to our accessible services and award winning teams. We have a passion for research, innovation and tackling inequalities. We are committed to respect, fairness and civility and promote a compassionate, caring and positive culture / working environment.

We welcome all applications irrespective of peoples race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups. Looking after our workforces health and wellbeing is a priority for us. We also provide access to high quality education, training, career progression and support. Flexible working is supported via our Flexible Working Policy.

The Trust employs around 8,746 people and provides a range of hospital services to a local community of around 430,000 residents. We also provide a range of more specialised services outside this area. We offer our staff outstanding benefits - Fitness Centre (SRH), libraries at both hospital sites, chaplaincy support and access to a Care Co-ordinator to help staff with childcare arrangements.If you use AI, and it poses a risk to the integrity of your individual recruitment process, we may withdraw your application at any stage of the process.

Details

• Date posted: 21 October 2026
• Pay scheme: Agenda for change
• Band: Band 7
• Salary: £49,387 to £56,515 a year
• Contract: Permanent
• Working pattern: Full-time
• Reference number: C9155-FCNM-1026-01
• Job locations: Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sunderland, SR4 7TP, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

The Bereavement Lead Midwife will provide support to women and their families who have experienced fetal loss or the death of a baby in the maternity setting. The post holder will be expected to liaise appropriately with all key members of the multi-disciplinary team and service users related to this speciality. To be responsible for all aspects of patient care including involvement in the assessment, planning, delivery and evaluation of direct patient care. To work weekdays with occasional weekends and/or nights to monitor quality of service throughout a 24hour period. To provide specialised training, guidance and support to midwifery and medical staff when caring for women experiencing loss in pregnancy, stillbirth or early neonatal death. They will act as an educational resource for staff on physical, psychological and administrative aspects of bereavement care.

PLEASE REFER TO THE ATTACHED JOB DESCRIPTION FOR FULL DUTIES OF THE ROLE

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).