Rachel Coleman

I qualified as a midwife in 1996 and worked as a community and hospital based midwife in London, prior to relocating to Bath. I am also a registered nurse, having qualified from a London teaching Hospital in 1993. My nursing experience included working for two years in acute and colorectal surgery at a London Hospital.

My current role is the quality improvement and education lead midwife, in a women and children’s division. I have an excellent clinical skill set in acute midwifery and within my role. I am the fetal monitoring midwifery lead for the trust where I perform daily fetal monitoring rounds in the acute birth centre, plan and teach fetal monitoring training and am involved in the review of adverse events including those where fetal monitoring has potentially caused harm.

During my career I have developed advanced skills in high dependency care, fetal heart monitoring, epidural care, ventouse practitioner, newborn life support, newborn infant physical examination, advanced perineal repair and IV cannulation /phlebotomy/drugs. I have in depth experience in pregnancy loss both clinically and in writing guidelines in response to SANDS recommendations and The National Bereavement Pathway, as well as leading multidisciplinary reviews and reports for baby’s who suffer HIE. I lead improvements in clinical practice and education through sharing learning from serious incidents and reporting systems. I have the responsibility of writing and implementing clinical guidance in line with local and national findings, in addition to leading reports such as Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and PMRT. I produce RCA reports for the Trust and I am able to share learning to improve safety from these in a discreet and professional manner for staff and families. In addition, I lead on a quarterly Maternity Governance report and on the Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) maternity data for the Trust, which I review on a monthly basis. Learning from these events is shared with staff to improve care; I write the Trust education programmes within maternity services to ensure that this takes place.

My role as the Clinical Excellence Forum Lead provides me with the opportunity to review and align local guidance to national guidance in a timely manner: I have recently rewritten the ‘Terms of Reference’ to enhance this process maintaining a high level of clarity and detail, and have reduced the turnaround for the publication of new guidance by over 50%. I have recently completed an Advance Practitioner Pathway-Masters Module in Leadership and Innovation at the West of England University and am an advocate of continued professional development in order to continually improve care and safety.

In addition, I have undertaken medico-legal training on the NHSR Early Notification Scheme and I am in a position to assist with casework of this nature.

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.