Abstract Overview:
Following our review of our Standards of Pre-Registration Midwifery Programmes in 2023, there were calls for midwifery programmes to more innovative and ambitious to meet the workforce requirements in the UK and improve retention of student midwives and early career midwives. During 2022-2023 we commenced a practice learning review to determine the context of contemporary midwifery practice learning for student midwives and the midwives who are their practice supervisors and assessors. Our findings demonstrated that practice learning experiences varied and this had a potential negative effect on student midwives achieving their proficiencies to join our Register as a midwife. There was also a paucity of evidence for some aspects of the midwifery programme requirements. We are now undertaking a further phase of work to explore further aspects of the midwifery programme.

Aims and Objectives:
We have some key lines of enquiry in relation to midwifery that we propose to explore during 2024 namely: 1. further examines the practice learning experience of student with protected characteristics (include those who require reasonable adjustments) to understand whether these are taken into account as part of students; learning and whether they impact student retention. 2. expand the type of support we offer to students, practice supervisors and practice assessors 3. evaluate key aspects of the midwifery curriculum to understand students' practice learning experiences, including what works well and what could be improved. This will help us understand how they can be best supported to achieve their midwifery specific proficiencies, for example number of births.

Method:
A Steering Group comprised of key stakeholders. A range of methodologies that could include focus groups, questionnaires, through leadership groups. We will engage with a range of stakeholders including the women and their partners and families who use maternity services.

Results:
To be confirmed during the presentation as work is ongoing.

Conclusion:
This work will identify whether our standards for pre-registration midwifery programmes need to be strengthened or developed further. The importance and the methodology of building consensus within the midwifery community and key stakeholders and the public in the absence of robust evidence will be presented.