Midwives in the NHS

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Siobhan Baillie

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie]

I could not agree more with both interventions. I think we are going to hear more from other Members about continuity of care, which is the way to manage pregnancy and how most midwives want to work. But that can be achieved in many hospitals and many midwife teams only if we have the staffing. Given the numbers at the moment, this is a key issue.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for securing today’s debate and also wish her well with her pregnancy.

I have spoken to midwives in York and visited maternity services. Many women find that they are diverted from York to other maternity services at the time of delivery—clearly, very stressful for them—because we just do not have adequate staffing. Does the hon. Member not agree that we need a proper workforce plan to ensure that women have the safety that they require through their pregnancy and particularly at the time of birth?

[Siobhan Baillie]

I think what we will hear from the Government is that there is a plan for recruitment, but we need more details. The Royal College of Midwives is certainly asking questions. My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) knows from the work of the Health and Social Care Committee that when the current Culture Secretary was maternity services Minister last year, she was incredibly passionate about this issue. She accepted that the NHS was short of the equivalent of 1,932 full-time midwives—but since then, sadly, the number has fallen by a further 222, leaving the shortage at over 2,000. Since records began in 2009, the number of NHS midwives has fallen in England year on year. We are in a really difficult situation at the moment.

To put this into perspective, there were more than 613,000 births in England and Wales in 2020. At the last count of midwives in 2021, there were 26,901 in England, but that drops to 22,301 if we look at part-time figures. By looking at the birth rate and the number of midwives, we can see just how stretched midwives are.

The Association for Improvements in Maternity Services says that

“urgent action is certainly needed to shore up what seems to be a maternity service that is losing staff at a catastrophic rate.”

Over half of midwives surveyed by the Royal College of Midwives say they are considering leaving their job. I know personally a wonderful midwife, Stevie, who has chosen to retire this year, and I wonder how many midwives are making the same choice. My mother, who is a nurse, not a midwife, is choosing to retire as well. They have had a pretty tough two years in the NHS, as we know, but the most worrying feature of the RCM survey, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, is that the highest levels of dissatisfaction are among newer midwives—those who have spent five years or less working in the NHS. So we have a pipeline problem, a new intake problem and a problem with retention of experienced staff.