TikTok midwife: ‘Jealous colleagues bullied me out’

Lara Basini-Millar, who posts under the name midwifemillar, said a "clique" of fellow midwives had created a WhatsApp group chat to criticise her videos and that she had been the subject of a “witch hunt".

She has launched legal action against the North Bristol NHS Trust alleging constructive unfair dismissal.

The trust said it would be “inappropriate” to comment because of the forthcoming court case.

Advice and tips

Ms Basini-Millar previously appeared on Channel 4’s One Born Every Minute and was working as a midwife at Southmead Hospital in Bristol two years ago when she started posting videos on TikTok to “help women believe in themselves".

The posts offer practical advice, from what it feels like to be pregnant to what might happen during labour and the importance of speaking up if a woman feels that something is not right or she is not being listened to.

“A lot of the advice I'm giving to women is because I have been that woman,” said Ms Basini-Millar.

“Yes, it’s safe. Yes, it’s within the guidance. Yes, it's educational. But ultimately, it's about starting believing in yourselves. Stop doubting yourself, because that's what women do," she said.

The BBC has been told that a number of midwives at Southmead Hospital have raised concerns about bullying with senior management.

However, quite quickly after she began posting, she said, maternity staff at the trust started complaining about the videos.

She said they had told her the videos were unprofessional, some were sexual in nature and they undermined the reputation of the trust, even though there was nothing on them to identify where she worked.

Ms Basini-Millar discovered that a WhatsApp group had been created among some colleagues, where they would criticise the videos.

She claimed she was also asked to hand into the trust the clothes she wore in the posts, even though she had bought them herself and they had no hospital branding on them.

“They were my own clothes, and I provided receipts. I was like, ‘this is ridiculous’. It just felt like every week I was called in [by a manager] to discuss the videos," she said.

She claimed one manager said: “I wouldn't let you look after anybody I know because you're so unprofessional on your TikToks.”

'Witch hunt'

In late 2022, Ms Basini-Millar concluded she could no longer cope with what she perceived to be constant bullying and resigned.

In a letter to senior management, she wrote that she had “not been treated fairly", which resulted in "months of worry and stress", and ultimately culminated with her leaving a job she loved.

Needing to earn some money, however, the mother-of-two continued to do agency shifts at the hospital while waiting to start another job in London.

In March 2023, she was phoned and told that she had made a serious clinical error and her future shifts had been cancelled.

She was accused of coercing a woman out of having a Caesarean section against a consultant’s wishes.

An investigation found colleagues “unnecessarily dug up a past incident"

The trust reported her to the regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), who launched an urgent fitness to practice review.

The inquiry found there were no immediate concerns about Ms Basini-Millar, and an internal investigation was then launched by Southmead Hospital.

On the central allegation, that she had pushed the woman to have a vaginal birth against medical advice, the review concluded “there was no evidence to support this allegation".

Indeed, the review found that staff had contacted another patient who had raised a minor complaint about Ms Basini-Millar months earlier to encourage her to make a formal complaint, a situation the report describes as “unnecessarily digging up a past incident".

In March of this year, Ms Basini-Millar received a letter from the NMC saying they had closed their investigation as “there was no case for you to answer".

The whole case, said the midwife, was “a witch hunt…they didn’t just want me gone, they wanted me off the register".

'Poor culture'

The internal review carried out by the trust raised broader concerns about the midwifery department.

It found that staff were “not comfortable with raising concerns about colleagues as they feel there is a culture that nothing will be done".

The BBC has been told that a number of midwives at Southmead Hospital have raised concerns about bullying with senior management.

Poor culture has been repeatedly blamed by official inquiries as contributing to the problems within maternity care across England.

A report published last year, Say No to Bullying in Midwifery, highlighted the experiences of hundreds of midwives, many of whom had felt forced to leave the profession.

It gave harrowing details of what midwives had experienced, including panic attacks before starting a shift or fantasising about dying on the way to work.

Bullying and workplace cliques were a constant feature.

“It comes down to people not feeling listened to,” said Jenny Wylam, one of the co-authors.

“The other one is stress due to busy wards, staffing levels, things like that – people getting snappy, feeling undervalued.

"So if they're feeling like they're not being listened to by management, they pass it on. And that's where you get people forming cliques, forming a network of people around them who they trust and can control to a certain extent.”

Staff are valued

Ms Basini-Millar is now suing North Bristol NHS trust for constructive unfair dismissal; the case is due to be heard in September.

In a statement, the trust said that as the allegations were subject to an employment tribunal “it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this stage".

They added that their staff were "deeply valued and we take any and all concerns raised with the utmost seriousness".

Ms Basini-Millar still makes TikTok videos as well as working as a midwife at an NHS trust in London, necessitating her to drive three hours each way on a regular basis.

“I liken [what I experienced] to an assault," she said.

"And the hardest thing is lots of those people were my friends. And there's not many that have stuck by me.

"I kept my TikToks going because that was the thing that was keeping me alive," she said.

-BBC