Elke Vine

Qualifications 

BSc (Hons) Midwifery, PGC Advanced Midwifery

Specialisms 

• Hospital midwife
• Birth Choices Clinic
• High risk pregnancy
• Diabetes in pregnancy

Introduction 

I qualified as a midwife in 2003. Since then I have had many roles and responsibilities including rotational midwife, community midwife, antenatal clinic coordinator, labour ward coordinator, supervisor of midwives, Better Births Lead Midwife and Professional Midwifery Advocate. I have also recently undertaken almost a years secondment as a Consultant Midwife.

I am currently employed as the Labour Ward Manager for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. I am involved in the day to day running of the labour ward and am present for morning handovers and intermittently throughout the day to ensure safety checks are completed and staff are supported. I have overall line manager responsibility for the core staff and am involved in ensuring they are performing well in their roles, and are practicing safely and within guidance. I am expected to work at least once a week in a clinical capacity. This is mainly as either a labour ward coordinator or as a lead triage midwife. I also ensure I do an occasional shift giving one to one care to a woman in labour.

From 2007 till April 2023 I held the post of labour ward coordinator.  During this time I also had various other leadership roles but always maintained my clinical practise and expertise by working in my clinical coordinator role at least once a week. This has allowed me to maintain my clinical credibility. I would consider myself to be an expert practitioner and am confident in both complicated and physiological birth. In my role as a Supervisor of Midwives and now Professional Midwifery Advocate, I have a strong portfolio of experience of NMC hearings, practice related investigations, report writing, feeding back to staff and supporting staff through serious incidents. I also have experience of reviewing services in other local hospitals.

I have had many years of experience of counselling women who choose to birth outside of guidance and run a specialist clinic for this service. I began holding monthly clinics for women in 2007, not long after becoming a Supervisor of Midwives. In 2015 the Consultant Midwives formalised the clinic and we joint wrote a guideline to support women who might choose to go against the advice of healthcare professionals when deciding when and how to give birth to their babies. This includes women who choose to use the Birth centre or Home when they are considered high risk or have complexities that would need to be managed in a labour ward setting or with doctor led care. This has given me a wealth of experience and knowledge of discussing risk in childbirth. In addition this service has given me the ability to discuss plans of care in depth with the rest of the multidisciplinary team and to be able to have difficult conversations with doctors, midwives and managers of the service. l can offer particular expertise in: intrapartum cases; labour ward, birth centre or homebirth care; emergency, triage or day assessment care; interpreting foetal heart rates, either auscultated or with continuous cardiotocograph.

I accept instructions from both claimant and defendant solicitors and insurers. I have undergone formal training in the medico-legal process and am fully aware of my responsibilities under Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) pertaining to expert witnesses.