Expert Witness

Ms Jean Cockshaw

Community Midwife

ENB997, RGN, RM

Clinical practice experience

Jean qualified as a registered nurse in 1985 and began her career at the Salford NHS Foundation Trust until she then enrolled to study to become a Midwife. Jean qualified as a registered midwife in 1988 which in turn led her to begin working for the Royal Bolton Foundation Trust where she remains and continues to practice midwifery part-time in the community setting. Jean has 30 years’ experience in midwifery during which time she has rotated into each ward area and department, thus allowing her to maintain a high standard of care. The rotation has allowed Jean to remain up to date with all new and relevant policies and guidelines; therefore, enabling her to empower the women in her care to make a fully informed choice about the care she receives. At present Jean holds a caseload of approximately 70 women and their families which she provides seamless care for during the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal period. Jean continues to remain up to date with her training within the NHS and the Trust, including statutory and mandatory which are required by law and mandatory and statutory which are role specific and are required by the Trust.

Clinical interests

Jean is extremely passionate about providing continuity of carer for her women within her caseload. She has an interest in the upcoming changes in midwifery which will allow the midwives working at Royal Bolton Foundation Trust to provide a gold standard of care. Following on from the Better Births paper which has been published by NHS England, all trusts must strive to provide 75% by 2024 year. Jean is working closely with her Midwifery Team leader to enable the team to develop their own model of care which will provide women with a small team of named midwives. These named midwives will ensure that women in their care receive continuity of carer, which in turn will allow for personalised, safe care, better perinatal postnatal and mental health, and multi-professional working. Research has shown that by implementing continuity of carer it will reduce the rates of still birth, neonatal death, maternal death and brain injury during birth by 20%.

Research interests

Saving Babies Lives is a care bundle which has been implemented within the Maternity Services at her trust. This care bundle ensures that fewer families have to suffer grief and loss. This care bundle brings together five elements of care that are widely recognised as evidence-based and/or best practice. Due to Jean's own personal experiences, she has an interest in the research surrounding the five elements. She has studied the evidence-based research which highlights the need to reduce smoking in pregnancy, risk assessment, prevention and surveillance of pregnancies at risk of fetal growth restriction, raising awareness of reduced fetal movements, effective monitoring during labour and reducing pre term birth. Jean incorporates all of the above elements into her day to day practice as a Community Midwife, ensuring all her women are receiving quality, safe, evidence based care.

Teaching & training

Part of the role of a Midwife is to mentor student midwives and preceptees. Jean embraces this as part of her role and strives to teach our future midwives how to provide a high standard of care. Jean has extensive experience in ensuring that student and preceptee midwives are clinically sound in all areas of midwifery care along with the underpinning research, national and local drivers, standards and policies. She also provides antenatal education to women and their partners on both a 1:1 level and a group session. This is important to enable the women to engage with the services and to know what is provided during her journey into motherhood. Jean provides them with valuable information therefore allowing them to make informed choices surrounding her care during the pregnancy continuum.

Memberships of professional bodies

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