Donna Marie Kirwan

MSc Genomic Medicine, MPhil, MSc.Res., PGCert.DU, RM, RN

Donna Kirwan is the national midwifery lead for genomics at NHS England with over 35 years’ nursing and midwifery experience. After qualifying as a nurse, she became a gynae staff nurse, then a couple of years later, fulfilled her ambition to train as a midwife. Most of Donna’s midwifery career was spent in Fetal Medicine, where in 1992 she helped set up the tertiary level fetal medicine service for the Northwest region as the Lead Specialist Midwife supporting the care of women with high-risk pregnancies.  Five years into her role, Donna trained in obstetric ultrasound and upon qualifying was trained to carry out amniocentesis. As the first ever midwife-amniocentesis practitioner she created a holistic service providing continuity of care for highly anxious women with higher-than-expected antenatal screening results.  A package of care which included pre-amniocentesis counselling, procedure followed by delivering cytogenetic test results which, if atypical involved a ‘home visit’ ensured that no woman was left isolated as Donna delivered a timely and seamless midwifery service. The clinical utility of this role featured in ‘The Practising Midwife’ – ‘Amniocentesis and the Specialist Midwife: The Developing Role’ (2000) where Donna explained the why such as service was needed and provided performance data. Other hospital Trust specialist midwives took up the mantel and replicated the service (Countess of Chester, Birmingham, and Southport). Separate to this, Donna undertook a thesis exploring ‘Women’s experiences of red cell antibodies in pregnancy’ (2005) and was awarded a Master of Philosophy (MPhil). This led to co-writing the ‘BCSH guideline for the use of anti-D immunoglobulin for the prevention of haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn’ (2014) with the British Society for Haematology.

Other roles followed after departing clinical practice, the first as the regional antenatal and newborn screening coordinator for the Northwest of England to implement national standards and policy for genetic screening programmes, then working for the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme as the National Midwifery Projects Officer where Donna led several national projects, one of which was the first ever ‘NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme 18+0 to 20+6 Weeks Fetal Anomaly Scan Standards and Guidance for England’(2010) which enhanced and improved the detection of structural fetal abnormalities.

For a short period, Donna worked freelance taking on different projects, for the then Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), the latter of which involved scoping 25 hospital Trusts to describe practitioner compliance in notification of abortion. The review of services was instigated by a Freedom of Information (FoI) to the DHSC by the media and collaborating with services resulted in improved reporting. A short stint in Saudia Arabia to develop a midwifery programme for Saudi nurses in collaboration with Edge Hill University was followed by a return to clinical practice where Donna became involved in the landmark 100,000 Genomes Project.

Donna began working at the Clinical Genetics department at Liverpool Women’s Hospital as a Recruitment Practitioner for the 100,000 Genomes Project, recruiting families with rare disease and women with ovarian and endometrial cancer and during this time, she embarked on the Master’s in Genomic Medicine and graduated in 2020, the same year that she joined NHS England’s Genomics Unit as the National Lead Midwife for Genomics. This exciting and dynamic role is to support the implementation of genomics for the midwifery workforce and involves guiding and supporting NHS England’s GU commissioners to deliver the national genomics strategy as well as managing the Midwives in Genetics and Genomics Network (MiGGs.Net). Work also involves working in partnership with Genomics England Limited (GEL) – The Newborn Genomes Programme, Royal College of Midwives (RCM), Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Royal College of Obs and Gyane (RCOG), Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), Chief Midwifery Officer and her Team for England and the Maternity Transformation Programme (MTP).

During her career, Donna has maintained a focus in women’s health and pregnancy and taken opportunities to learn and grow nurture others as well. As well as her own research, she has been involved in national and international research studies which she has presented at national and international conferences (as far as Manilla).  Also under her belt are several book chapters, one of which, ‘Genetics and Genomics’ was launched in May by Elsevier. The ‘Maye’s Midwifery, Textbook for Midwives’ (16th ed.,) considered the ‘go-to-book’ for undergraduates and qualified midwives is particularly special because it’s the first midwifery book with a chapter dedicated to genomics for midwives!