Carmel Bagness
Midwifery & Women's Health Adviser
Carmel Bagness (MA (Medical Ethics) RN RM ADM PGCEA) is a registered nurse, practicing midwife and midwifery educationalist. She has considerable expertise in midwifery education, being a programme leader for the three year midwifery programme at Berkshire College of Nursing & Midwifery in the early 1990s.
She then worked for Thames Valley University as a senior lecturer, where she was involved in the creation of an innovative problem based / enquiry based learning curriculum developed for both 78 week and three year midwifery pre-registration programmes. In 2000, she became Lead Midwife for Education at Thames Valley University, where she was responsible for a creative team of midwifery lecturers, who progressed midwifery education, scholarship and practice from pre registration through to post graduate masters programmes.
During this time, she developed extensive links with maternity units across North West London and Berkshire, including being actively involved at Northwick Park Maternity Services during the Health Care Commission review. In 2007-08 she was one of the senior academic leads during the NHS London turnaround action plan with the university, and moved on to because Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning and Assessment in 2008.
In September 2009, she was seconded to the Department of Health’s Midwifery 2020 programme as Stakeholder Engagement Lead. Midwifery 2020 was the government’s key programme of work around developing an informed vision of the contribution midwives will make to achieving quality, cost-effective maternity services for women, babies and families across the United Kingdom.
During this time she was also on the steering group who produced the Department of Health’s position statement on Advanced Level Nursing. In 2011 she joined the RCN as the Midwifery and Women’s Health Adviser. She has particular interests in reproductive and women’s health ethics, managing change, workforce management and creating effective environments to move forward practice and education for midwives and nurses.