Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase staffing levels in maternity services.

The Government is committed to tackling the retention and recruitment challenges that face the National Health Service. Bringing in the staff we need will take time, but this is a priority for the Government.

NHS England is leading a range of initiatives to boost retention of existing staff and ensure that the NHS remains an attractive career choice for new recruits. This includes building a compassionate and inclusive culture, supporting staff wellbeing, and promoting flexible working opportunities. As a part of this, there are interventions in place specific to the maternity and neonatal workforce, such as creating a midwifery and nursing retention self-assessment tool, mentoring schemes, support on pensions, investing in unit-based midwife retention leads. We are also boosting the midwifery workforce through undergraduate training, apprenticeships, postgraduate conversion, and return to midwifery programmes.