A senior midwife at a south-east London hospital is retiring this week after 50 years of service to the NHS.

Ann Gibbs, who works for King’s College NHS Foundation Trust, began her NHS career in September 1975, as part of an experimental fast-track programme at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.

In her first four years she completed her nursing qualification and qualified as a midwife at Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, where she delivered 40 babies in one year.

Head of midwifery at Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH), Clare Baker, said Ann had “consistently been at the forefront of innovation”.

“From being one of the first midwives to complete the Newborn and Infant Physical Examination course (NIPE), to introducing mobile phones, and helping establish postnatal clinics, she has been a font of knowledge for her colleagues,” she added.

Gibbs worked at hospitals across London, Kent and Winchester including King’s College Hospital, where she trained midwives in theatre practice as a sister on the labour ward.

She became an employee of King’s College NHS Foundation Trust in 2013 when it took over Queen Mary’s Hospital from South London Healthcare NHS Trust.

“The families we work with are very different now. When I began working as a midwife, many women were having children in their teens and early twenties, and now we see more people who are in their thirties and forties,” said Gibbs.

“This sets us more challenges, but we are there to help and support them. If we deliver good antenatal care, then we are limiting the complexities of what can happen when in labour.”