NHS: Midwives

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness is quite right. Helping commissioners to reduce unwarranted variation in service delivery is one of the key roles of the maternity and children strategic clinical networks, as I am sure she is aware, which are being established and supported by NHS England. Clinical commissioning groups are responsible for commissioning maternity services locally, but they work with local authorities and in conjunction with provider partners to give assurance that processes and service specifications are in place which ensure that midwifery staffing is appropriate for the locality.

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, the number of births has gone up by 25% in the past 10 years. The vacancy rate among midwives is about 11%. That is the long-term vacancy rate. There seems to be a problem with recruitment and retention. Despite the figures that the noble Earl has cited, we are in some difficulty.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is right. We recognised that issue at the outset of the Government, which is why we were determined that the number of midwives in training should be increased. It is now at a record number of 6,000. The number of trained midwives is increasing—that is, full-time equivalent midwives practising in the NHS rather than just on the register. We are heading in the right direction, but there is a long way to go.