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 through (a) recruitment and (b) retention practices to ensure the diversity of the maternity healthcare professional workforce.

Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service employers. NHS England’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion plan, published in 2023, includes a commitment to embed fair and inclusive recruitment processes and talent management strategies that target under-representation and lack of diversity.

It is important that the NHS workforce feels valued and well supported. NHS England is leading on a range of initiatives to boost the retention of existing staff, including building a compassionate and inclusive culture.

Targeted retention work for midwives is being undertaken by NHS England and led by the Chief Nursing Officer. This includes a midwifery and nursing retention self-assessment tool, mentoring schemes, and targeted efforts to improve the diversity of the workforce through four nationally run programmes to develop staff from ethnic minority backgrounds.