How to improve newly qualified midwives’ wellbeing in practice. A Delphi study | 165 this facility was shared among regional maternity care partnerships (VSV). The stakeholders’ willingness to provide backup appeared to be in line with NQMs’ needs for around-the-clock backup, to enhance their self-confidence and to enable them to provide safe care.3 However, it might be difficult to organise this in practice. Without a firm commitment at the socio-political level, it will not be possible to provide backup for all practising NQMs.28 The Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives can enhance this implementation by creating policies and resources that emphasise the importance of backup facilities that enable NQMs to provide high quality midwifery care in the community. This could make it easier to implement support for NQMs at local or regional level. The third component of socialisation indicates that it is the employer’s responsibility to communicate details of tasks and responsibilities. The stakeholders in this study agreed on the importance of informing NQMs what is expected of them, in terms of tasks and performance. The outcomes suggest that providing clarity about their tasks, roles and responsibilities can help to prevent newcomers becoming frustrated or demotivated.14 Previous studies showed that, in practice, there is no steady build-up of NQMs’ tasks and responsibilities, nor do they receive feedback on their performance.2,3 The views of midwives concerning their position with regard to NQMs and the associated impact on their workload seemed to pose problems for the organisational socialisation of NQMs in practice. Midwives’ opinions regarding their role as practice owners who is more a commissioning agent rather than an employers, prevented them from acting as supportive managers.3,4 By accepting the responsibilities towards supporting NQMs in practice, as shown by the commitment among stakeholders in this study, a step towards improving the working conditions of NQMs in maternity care can be taken. The fourth component of the socialisation of practising NQMs concerns the importance of a stable working environment. Although the importance of a stable working environment for NQMs is widely recognised,2,3,8,29 there was no consensus on these statements among the stakeholders in this study. In Dutch midwifery practice, three out of four NQMs start their career as a locum (self-employed) midwife in community-based midwifery, which implies working in different practices and therefore not a stable work environment.1 In hospital-based work environments in the Netherlands, most NQMs have temporary employment contracts. This lack of a stable working environment hinders an NQM’s development, and makes it difficult for them to request help.27 The stakeholders in this study may have underestimated the importance of a stable working environment for the wellbeing of practising NQMs. Another explanation might be the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw