A values-based curriculum to support aesthetic ‘ways of knowing’ in an undergraduate midwifery programme

The public enquiry into the failings of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Francis, 2013) found that poor leadership, and a focus on targets rather than people, led to health professionals failing to provide patients with safe, high quality and compassionate care. Since then, NHS England has attempted to improve the culture of care by promoting values of respect, dignity, quality of care, compassion, working together for patients, valuing every patient and improving lives (NHS, 2012).

In 2014, Higher Education England, who have the responsibility for supporting the recruitment of the future healthcare workforce, published a values-based strategy (Higher Education England, 2016). The aim of the strategy was to recruit pre-registration students with the values and behaviours that are consistent with those of the NHS. The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) identified professional values based on the delivery of ‘safe, effective, woman-centred, timely and equitable’ evidence- and community-based care (RCM, 2014). The increased awareness of the importance of values-based education has led to providers of midwifery to develop value-based curricula, although there is a paucity of literature that describes the development of a value-based midwifery programme.