Healthy Pregnancy Support Practitioner (Internal Only) Full Time NEW

This post is for internal candidates to The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust and Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust. If you are not currently working within either of these Trusts, your application will not be reviewed and automatically rejected at shortlisting stage. Please be aware of this when submitting your application.

As part of the Healthy Pregnancy Support Service (HPSS), the Practitioner will work within Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin alongside midwives and independently within community settings and patients’ homes to provide an evidenced based behaviour change healthy lifestyle service. The needs of patients will be at the forefront of the service, which aims to improve the general health of pregnant women, by encouraging healthy life choices e.g. quitting smoking and healthy diet and exercise. Working with women and their families to adopt a healthy lifestyle in pregnancy, the main priority will be to focus on and support smoking cessation, as this is a proven modifiable change that will reduce the risk of perinatal and infant morbidity and mortality. Another key priority will be to educate and encourage a healthy safe diet and maintain a healthy weight gain in pregnancy; promote the use of healthy start vitamins, promote the benefits and encourage the uptake of breastfeeding and recommended vaccination programmes for pregnant women.

Main duties of the job

• Providing an intensive behavioural support service to facilitate pregnant women through a structured evidenced based stop smoking support programme, including providing individual choices with stop smoking medications and inform on the use of e-cigarettes to reduce risk.
• Educating and giving guidance on how to reduce their baby and children’s exposure to second-hand environmental tobacco smoke in the home to protect them from the known harmful effects.
• As well as face to face, use a range of communication as appropriate to deliver support, e.g. text messages, video call and telephone calls.
• Discussing and demonstrating how to ensure healthy eating in pregnancy, to maintain a healthy weight gain in pregnancy and reduce excessive weight into the postnatal period.
• Informing women on which safe physical activity patterns can be performed during pregnancy and signpost to local services to access activities appropriate for pregnant women.
• Discussing and encouraging the uptake of the routine offer of vaccinations.
• Using a range of techniques and goal setting to motivate clients and to provide them with support, information and guidance which will contribute to reducing health inequalities
• Signposting women, members of their household and significant others to other healthy lifestyle services/organisations available locally.

Working for your organisation

Our Poppy’s Promise Commitment

We believe that compassionate care sits at the heart of everything we do. Every member of our team — clinical or non-clinical — plays a vital role in ensuring that patients, families, and colleagues are treated with dignity, empathy, and respect at all times.

We expect all staff to demonstrate compassion not only through their words, but through their actions: by listening attentively, communicating clearly and kindly, and recognising individual needs, feelings, and circumstances of those in our care.

Effective communication is central to safe and high-quality healthcare. We value colleagues who take the time to understand others, explain information in a meaningful way, and respond to concerns with patience and understanding.

By joining our team, you are committing to uphold these values — ensuring that every patient feels heard, respected, and valued, and that compassion is embedded in every interaction, every day.

Hospital Transformation Programme (HTP)

Our Service will relocate to The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in 2028 as part of HTP. This move will bring specialist services together in a modern, purpose-built facility to improve patient care and team experience.

We are actively recruiting, and successful candidates will be expected to move with the Service in early 2028. The relocation will follow a formal management of change process, including full consultation and support for staff.

View full details of HTP