Royal College of Midwives calls on government to address chronic staffing shortages in maternity

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is calling on the Government to take urgent action to address chronic staffing shortages in maternity services that are putting women, babies and staff at risk.

The Safe Staffing = Safe Care campaign was launched in Parliament on 20 January, with 50 MPs and peers present. At the event midwives, maternity support workers and student midwives spoke about the realities of providing care in under-staffed services, and why safer staffing would help improve maternity safety in the long-term.

RCM Chief Executive Gill Walton says unsafe staffing levels were now a daily reality across maternity services and warned that midwives were being held to account for systemic failures beyond their control.

She says: “When midwives are working excessively long shifts without a break, driving home exhausted and returning the next day expected to provide safe, compassionate care, we have to ask: how can we expect exhausted midwives to provide the safest care? It’s simply unacceptable to ask this of our dedicated maternity staff in this day and age. As part of our campaign, we’re telling the Government: enough is enough.”

The RCM says there is overwhelming evidence that safe staffing saves lives. However, despite 748 recommendations on maternity safety made over the past decade, progress has been slow and inconsistent, with women and babies continuing to suffer avoidable harm. New data has shown that maternal deaths in the UK are 20% higher than they were a decade ago.

Walton adds: “The scale of the challenge is well known. What’s missing is urgent, decisive action backed by ring-fenced, sustainable funding. Without safe staffing, care simply cannot be safe.”

“Our members didn’t sugar-coat the reality,” she says. “They told MPs exactly what it’s like on wards, in clinics and providing care in women’s homes. This is taking a huge toll on their working lives. What we’re hoping is that MPs will take what they heard to Wes Streeting and work with us on urgently demanding change.”

The event was hosted by MPs Paul Waugh and Sam Rushworth, who worked with the RCM on the launch after meeting with the RCM at the Labour Conference in September.

Speaking at the event, Waugh said: “Midwives are really important to every woman in the country who is preparing to give birth or has given birth. There is a maternity crisis in the UK, and this campaign is all about making sure we have a safe level of staffing. There’s a lot more we can do with the Government. Midwives are crucial to every community in the country, and I’m hoping we can get across to the Government that safe staffing is central to any reform that we make to make choice and safety a reality for women and their families.”

As part of the Safe Staffing = Safe Care campaign, the RCM is calling on Government to:

1. Deliver safe staffing through dedicated, multi-year funding via a national maternity and neonatal action plan to end chronic understaffing in hospital and community settings.

2. Protect a learning profession by providing midwives and maternity support workers with 52 hours of protected, salaried time to supervise students and complete essential continuing professional development.

3. Amplify midwives’ voices by mandating a Director of Midwifery in every trust and ensuring sufficient consultant midwives are in post as a non-negotiable standard.

4. Improve health and prevention by funding protected time for midwives and MSWs to develop cultural competence and deliver safe, equitable care for every mother and birthing person.

5. Invest in workplaces and birthplaces by prioritising poor maternity estates for urgent improvement through ring-fenced capital funding.