Midwifery with Foundation Year

Midwifery is a healthcare profession dedicated to supporting women through pregnancy, labour, and the postnatal period, providing skilled care at one of the most significant passages in human life. Midwives are the primary healthcare professionals for the majority of women during normal pregnancy and birth, and they play a critical role in identifying complications that require medical input while also promoting normal physiological birth and supporting women to make informed choices about their care. The profession requires both clinical expertise and deeply human qualities of empathy, communication, and the ability to build trusting relationships with women and their families at a time of vulnerability and joy.

At the University of Keele, this four-year full-time BSc with an integrated foundation year leads to registration as a midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, qualifying you to practise. The foundation year ensures that students enter the main programme with the academic and scientific preparation needed for degree-level midwifery education. Throughout the programme you will develop clinical skills and knowledge to provide holistic, safe, and effective care for women, newborn infants, and their families.

Substantial clinical placement experience in maternity units, community settings, and specialist care environments is central to the programme, giving you the practical competence and professional confidence that registration requires.

Registered midwives are in consistent demand across the NHS and independent sector, with midwifery services under sustained pressure from demographic change and growing expectations of maternity care. Newly qualified midwives work in hospital maternity units, birth centres, and community settings, providing antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care. With experience, midwives move into specialist roles including community midwifery, bereavement support, diabetes in pregnancy, and safeguarding, as well as leadership, management, and education roles.

Postgraduate study offers routes into advanced practice, research, and consultant midwife positions for those who wish to develop their expertise and lead improvements in maternity care.