To think the NCT should be free or much cheaper?

[TheHouseOnBellSt]

So to many people £48 for an 18 month membership is nothing...it's spare change. But that charge effectively exlcludes anyone on a really low income.

So only those who can afford it will benefit from what is essentially meant to be a charity to support parents or parents to be.

Their "vision" is copied below

Our vision is a world in which parents are valued and supported to build a strong society, believing that a child’s early years significantly impact upon the future they help to shape.

Our charitable purpose

We offer information and support in pregnancy, birth and early parenthood.
We campaign to improve maternity care and ensure better services and facilities for new parents.
We aim to give every parent the chance to make informed choices.
We want to make sure that everyone has access to our services and activities.

But only if you have a spare 48 quid?

this Guardian Article claims that NHS antenatal classes are patchy...and that the middle classes are signing up to the NCT ones which are private of course...so basically the working classes and the unwaged are either getting nothing or not much.

WHY is the NCT a middle class thing? It's meant to be a charity!

But you don't have to be a member to take the classes.

I was a shit poor pregnant 19 year old and I took the classes because I saw them recommended online and I liked the idea. We were not charged. XP chose to make a donation because he felt uncomfortable with getting them for free, but we would not have been charged.

Yes, it was awkward when the other mums met up and I couldn't really afford to go all out like they could, but that was a separate issue - do people really think that I shouldn't have done the classes because of that?

YANBU it is too expensive.

How is it too expensive given you don't have to pay for membership in order to access NCT stuff?

I found it very odd that in my area there were no nct groups for women who were having a baby on their own as many like myself the last thing we needed to hear was about how supportive partner were going to be

my midwife had warned me (there was a wait for any nhs classes) but I choose not to listen to her I wish I had as I found my experience with them upsetting and unsupportive

in the end i didn't attend any classes, I was lucky ds was an easy baby and I mostly felt confident in parenting

spring what is too expensive?

I have checked what our local classes cost. For the 18 hour course, it's £160/ couple.

That's less than £10/hour for both of you. And there are discounts if you're low income.

I don't think that's unreasonable

Thing that works for some people doesn't work for others shocker!

Bfing counsellors are paid for the sessions they run as part of antenatal classes and they are paid for manjingvthe helpline. Help they give outside of this is voluntary. Antenatal teachers are paid for contact time in classes only. So they are not paid for any of the planning, set-up and clear away, any of the follow-up and preparatory contact or for time needed for for CPD. They also pay for materials and refreshments themselves.

The costs of running the courses are for venue hire, practioner fees, the cost of the people who work in arranging and booking the classes, some towards the cost of training new practitioners, CPD costs etc etc.

If you breakdown the cost per hour and compare to many other type of classes such as hypnobirthing you will probably find they are pretty good value.

But the NCT courses are expensive because you're paying for them to be run by a trained antenatal tutor! The tutors have two years of training which costs a lot so each course has to pay for itself.

I was involved with our local NCT for a few years - editing the newsletter, running postnatal mum and baby coffee mornings, helping to run a playgroup - and the NCT relies on VOLUNTEERS to do everything. Without them the NCT would fold.

So that's why perhaps a 'shared experiences' counsellor doesn't call back straight away (or at all). Agree that if they can't afford to run a service it should be scrapped and the money put into another NCT service, because that's no good for anyone.

I am so baffled by the attitudes on this thread. If you take classes in a venue that has to be paid for, by a qualified instructor, who has had to pay for their training and materials, don't you expect to pay?

I bet Zumba teachers make more per hour than Ante natal teachers!

Why charge so much for antenatal classes?

When I was on the committee of my local NCT branch, the classes did not make a profit. In fact I believe that they are not meant to make a profit.

Our antenatal teacher had to give up working for the nct because she was making a loss on classes once childcare and travel were taken into account (evening babysitter, rural "patch"). It's one thing to expect volunteers to do something for nothing, but asking experts to pay to work is quite another!

Also want to make the point that even if NHS provision was widely available, local, and fully accessible, there will always be people that choose to go outside of it to access information. There are advantages AND disadvantages to getting your information from the same people that will be actually caring for you during labour; will you always be made aware of all your options or will you only be made aware of hospital policy (not the same thing!)

NCT classes only run if they break even, and many only just do so. They aren't priced to bring in income for the charity.

I think the reality is that there are some people who are totally unaware of the cost of running things and who think that absolutely everything should be available to all, regardless of income. When people don't really pay to access any kind of services or courses,they are surprised by the cost of things - they seem really expensive to them - and they probably are in relation to lots of people's incomes, but they are not in relation to the cost of providing them. These are financial realities. The NCT. Offers subsidies and you don't have to join to go on courses, but they MUST cover their costs - and this basic point seems to be missed by some people.

I think ante natal courses should be available to all - provided by gov through NHS. It is awful that some people cannot access one of these - not down to the NCT though.

For the NCT to offer a course clearly costs money - the teacher must be paid (and it's not much by the way....they aren't in it for the big bucks) and the hall hired and the cost of equipment covered. Some people seem to expect this stuff to all cost far less than the cost of their course - it quite simply doesn't! Other people seem disappointed by what they then receive for their money - 'it was stuff I could read in books' comments. Yes, it probably was - strangely,the NCT don't have access to a secret range of info that no one else knows - what exactly do people think they will learn there that they couldn't access somewhere else, if they could be bothered to and preferred to use that different method to get the info?

Someone earlier likened the NCT to the National Trust - I think it is a fair comparison. You have to pay for it, it is entirely optional and it costs the organisation a lot to run - you can go to the local park instead if you prefer not to pay or cannot. There is absolutely no reason why the NCT or the. National Trust need to be free or available to all - neither organisation has the capacity to be able to offer a service to absolutely everyone. Like most things, they are a service for those who pay. It is the governments job, not theirs,to provide a service for all - and as with everything, the paid service will offer more than the free version - but the free NHS version should be adequate in both availability and level of information.

"They charge to keep the riff raff out"

What rubbish!

We're on a low income. We paid about £10 for our NCT classes IIRC. It was a hefty discount anyway.

The others paid about £100 I think

Never understood the need for NCT.

I got through pregnancy and fifteen months so far of raising a baby without it, and that's as a then-19 year old with very little maternal instinct.

As for the social life aspect... again it's not a requirement, and also, the vast majority of NCT-related threads I see on here are people complaining about the other NCT mums! Seems like a waste of money really.

I got through pregnancy and fifteen months so far of raising a baby without it

Bully for you. Not everyone is that lucky.

I never did an NCT course as they had no multiple birth classes at the time (they now do!) but i am a member and a volunteer. I did do the NHS one but mainly cause i was so bloody bored being off work waiting for the DTs to pop out, it was ok but not really relevant to me and way way too many people there.
Our local NCT branch provides clothing, equipment and nappies/toiletries to vulnerable women (in shelters or just struggling financially at the min) and also pays for a midwife to go into a local womens prison and provide help, advice and support to pregnant women in the prison. We also have to fundraise to pay for the storage of all the baby items etc which isn't cheap.
It provides breastfeeding support to women who need it at various drop in clinics (daily) throughout the district but I have never gotten a pushy breast is best vibe from anyone. All of this is FREE and you do not need to be a member to access it. Since the Sure start centres were cut back, (we went from 7 to 2 in our very large area) they have provided further support for those who need it.
And like everyone else has pointed out it is available at a vastly discounted price for those who are on a limited income.
You are coming across quite frankly as someone who is jumping on the NCT bashing bandwagon but who has no actual experience of a particular branch/group.

I got through pregnancy and fifteen months so far of raising a baby without it, and that's as a then-19 year old with very little maternal instinct

Good for you, some of is aren't so confident/perfect/amazing (delete as applicable). I didn't have a single friend or family member within 150 miles due to a cross country move at 28 weeks pregnant. There were no NHS courses available. It was an absolute lifesaver for me.

NCT courses and NHS courses are optional. No-one needs to attend either of them.
Feeling you do or don't need them, doesn't make anyone better than anyone else.

Interestingly, regardless of whether there is a cost, those on higher incomes are more likely to access ante natal and post natal courses - it isn't always about cost, but inclination too. The SureStart centres were set up to ensure free or very cheap access to good quality services, especially in lower income areas - but what happened was that those they were particularly aimed at didn't attend in the numbers hoped for and those on higher incomes who they weren't so aimed at, saw the great things going on and did access them.

Attitudes towards courses such as ante natal, baby massage, parenting courses etc is often divided. Often those in lower socio-economic groups (and sorry to use that phrase...but what would be better.....it is a factor, so I won't ignore it just because some people might not like it mentioned, and this is a thread about cost) don't want to attend these courses even if they are free. Some people see them as interfering or bossy or unnecessary, or judgemental about the atendees; they aren't tuned into receiving information from experts generally. Those in higher socio economic groups are more likely to access such services (regardless of cost) and see them as useful, rather than in a negative light, and see receiving information from experts as helpful and worthwhile, rather than something that is interfering or just for the weak.

So, NCT aside, it is a real challenge for healthcare providers to reach out to groups who often would most benefit from the information provided, because they are most resistant to attending.

Of course, many people from lower income groups DO attend such courses and many people from higher income groups don't (and I'm not talking about NCT, but free courses) but in general terms, across the population, these trends hold.

Nothing wrong with the NHS ones in my area. My SIL had them to meet a better class of other mum to be friends with . I had the NHS ones and I'm a nurse, my mum friends are a teacher and a head teacher!

Sorry , my SIL had the NCT ones to meet posh friends!

The seems to be some sneery 'I have brought my children up without the nct and they're fine'. Of course that's true, but it's a choice. I enjoyed my nct class and made some good, normal friends. I don't see how that makes me better or worse than anyone else.