Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full time equivalent NHS midwives there were in England in each year from 2009.
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care, general practice surgeries, local authorities or other providers.
The following table below shows the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) HCHS midwives per 100,000 of the population as at September each year since 2009, along with the latest data, July 2020.
| England population estimate | HCHS midwives FTE | HCHS midwives per 100,000 of population |
September 2009 | 52,196,381 | 18,959 | 36.3 |
September 2010 | 52,642,452 | 19,487 | 37.0 |
September 2011 | 53,107,169 | 19,878 | 37.4 |
September 2012 | 53,493,729 | 20,214 | 37.8 |
September 2013 | 53,865,817 | 20,537 | 38.1 |
September 2014 | 54,316,618 | 20,838 | 38.4 |
September 2015 | 54,786,327 | 20,934 | 38.2 |
September 2016 | 55,268,067 | 21,038 | 38.1 |
September 2017 | 55,619,430 | 21,206 | 38.1 |
September 2018 | 55,977,178 | 21,323 | 38.1 |
September 2019 | 56,286,961 | 21,636 | 38.4 |
July 2020 | 56,678,000 | 22,049 | 38.9 |
Source: NHS Digital, National Health Service HCHS workforce statistics
Note:
Midwife to population ratios are derived from population estimates made by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figure given for 2020 is a 2018-based national population projection produced by ONS.