Pre-employment checks Once you have been offered a post, we have to undertake a number of mandatory checks which help us to keep you, our patients, staff and visitors safe. These checks have to be completed before we can agree your start date and send you a contract. We aim to complete these checks as quickly as possible. For your information, here is a list of the checks that we carry out for everyone who applies for a job at Wye Valley NHS Trust. Identity  We will ask you to provide us with documents which confirm your identity. These documents…

If you’ve ever dreamt of a place which brings together the convenience of living in a big city with the lifestyle associated with a home in a rural idyll, Herefordshire is the place for you. Herefordshire lies in the south west of the West Midlands, bordering Wales. It is a rural county with a population of around 178,400. Numbers are expected to grow to 193,600 by 2026. Just under half of the population live in villages and rural areas, just under a third (30 per cent) of the people live in Hereford City, and the rest (22 per cent) live…

Welcome to Wye Valley NHS Trust Community Midwifery, our aim is to support you and your family through pregnancy, labour and after the birth. As a team of Community Midwives we aim to provide the highest standard of care support and advice. We offer of range of options where to give birth to your baby, either in hospital, or at home. It is our aim to help you achieve your ideal birth experience, be that in the home or within the hospital. We have five Community Midwifery Teams providing care to the women of Herefordshire. Your named midwife is linked…

Congratulations on your pregnancy!  If you are newly pregnant you will need to self-refer to Wye Valley NHS Trust in order to make your first appointment.  Your first meeting with your midwife will take place when you are between eight to ten weeks pregnant. Whether this is your first pregnancy or you have had a baby before, you may have lots of questions about what to expect from your pregnancy care at our Trust.  This section will hopefully answer these queries and give you some additional useful information. We aim to provide the best possible care and experience for mothers, babies…

When your baby is born they are still receiving oxygen and blood through the umbilical cord and placenta to allow a smooth transition into life outside of the womb. At any one time, a third of a baby’s blood volume is in their placenta. Therefore it is recommended that the cord is left unclamped until baby has received all of their blood. If the cord is left until it has stopped pulsating, baby can benefit from increased iron, oxygen and weight gain.Delayed cord clamping is now routinely practised. This is when the cord is left for at least one minute…

What you choose to put in your body really affects how you feel and how healthy you are. Eating the right sort of foods in the right amount is one of the most important things you can do for your overall health. Eating unhealthily can lead to obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or type 2 diabetes. These conditions can increase the risk of heart and circulatory problems. There are lots of resources available to support you to understand a healthy approach to food and how to get into good eating habits that will help look after your heart health.…

Below is a list of our main community services.  This does not include every community service provided by the Trust. Friends and Family Test The Friends and Family Test. is a simple question that patients are asked about the care they have received. The test is part of a way of gathering patient feedback and driving improvement in NHS hospital services across the country. Guidance on the use of mobile phone and others device for patients and visitors  View information about our policy and guidance on mobile phones and other device use, which is in place to protect the confidentiality and privacy…

There is now strong evidence to say that homebirth is as safe as giving birth in hospital with many other psycho-social benefits.  Hutton et al (2019) state that ‘The risk of perinatal or neonatal mortality was not different when birth was intended at home or in hospital’. The Birthplace Study which involved 17,000 cases showed that homebirth is just as safe as giving birth in hospital for second or subsequent births. A possible explanation for this is that labouring in hospital is much more likely to involve interventions, which can interfere with normal physiology and cause further problems such as…

Staff roles in pharmacy

After your baby is born your midwife will ask whether you would like your baby to have a Vitamin K supplement. It is known that newborn babies have about 30% to 60% of the vitamin K an adult would have stored in their liver. It isn’t known why this is or if there is a reason for this. However, a very small amount of babies are born very deficient in Vitamin K and go on to develop Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding (VKDB). VKDB can cause bleeding from the nose, umbilicus, mouth or into the brain which can in turn cause…