No continuity of mentor

I am not sure who to turn to and was wondering if anyone on here could suggest anything,

I am in my first year and have just completed my community placement. I was extremely lucky to have had the same mentor throughout and got 4 skills signed off. We were given our off duty for the first five weeks of our 8 week delivery suite placement and I was given 4 different mentors and was not sure who was my sign off mentor. The person who did our off duty then realised she had made a mistake with our hours and gave us more hours, i was then changed a few shifts and two mentors changed. So now I have 5 mentors and not a sign off mentor to work with 40% of the time. My course leader shrugged it off and my personal tutor can't see me until next week. The person who does the off duty has told me not to panic and I will be well supported in practise. I know it is difficult with a lot of midwives working part time and too many students per placement, but I thought it was an NMC requirement to work with a sign off mentor for 40% of the time, when I actually will work with mine for 25%. I genuinely am concerned by this with regards to learning and getting things signed off. So what can I do?

I understand what you mean and am just wondering why you are not down to just work more shifts with the sign off mentor. Is it not possible to swap maybe 1 shift per week so that you can get your 40% with your mentor.

I am in my second year and have had this problem several times but you kind of just get used to it so long as there is someone to sign off whatever you need and support you thoroughly. Try not to worry about it and hopefully it will all work out.

Good luck

I've been through all the off duty as I work there as an MCA and my sign off mentor is on annual leave for the first week. She only works part time and half of her shifts she is rostered to work downstairs on postnatal. I think cos of the time of year it is alot of people are on annual leave. There's 9 of us on delivery suite at a time so no other people to work with!

I worked with 9-10 mentors during my 7 weeks labour ward placement. I managed to get everything signed off by a mentor who I worked 3 random shifts first and then 4 consequitive shifts. Altough working with different midwives has its benefits, it also made me underconfident. I have finished my LW placement now and I will hopefully soon start year 2, but I am going to definately address this issue in the future placements.

A lot of woman in my cohort had this problem and the only thing they could do was either get the midwife who they worked with most to sign off things or get each midwife to sign off different things so that in effect all of them became sign off mentors. Don't panic about it though you'll get everything signed off eventually it just may take some working around xx

Just be careful with this as you are supposed to work at least 40% of your placement with the person who is grading you. I have had this queried myself before and almost ended up redoing a whole placement block as my mentor I had worked with 80% of the time was currently doing the mentoring course and had to get everything they signed countersigned by someone else I had only worked with for two shifts! Double nd triple check with uni and get them to document it somewhere such as by email so if they query it at the end of your placement you have proof you made them aware and they said it was okay.

Was also thinking JB, we only have 5 weeks off duty so far so we might find that with the next lot of off duty we have more say in insisting on abit more continuity so that in total we do atleast have 40% with one mentor??? Just a thought, maybe I'm totally wrong!! xxx

Yeah I did think that, but i can see it being the same problem, as my mentor works part time. I am going to chat to the co-ordinator on Fri and reckon we can sort something out

I wouldn't worry too much, we can have our essential skills signed off by the midwife we've been working with and need our tripartite meeting signed off by a mentor......in my experience ( I'm in 2nd year) - as long as you get to work with the same person ( sign off mentor or not) a few times they are able to give guidance/advise.....I know it can be daunting and all trusts do it differently. For example some of the girls at my uni have the same sign off mentor the whole year.....at our trust we pick the mentor we want to attend out tripartite meeting, although in fariness most mw's at our trust are mentors. I realise it's easy to say but don't panic - just think of all the great experience you'll get by working with lots of different people - that's how I view it now ( I used to view it very differently!!) xx