Maternity funding slashed

[WaryCrow]

Does anyone have more information yet about this? Like, why are they doing it and what will the impacts be where?

rcm.org.uk/media-releases/2025/04/shocking-budget-cuts-will-compromise-the-delivery-of-safe-maternity-care-in-every-way-says-rcm/

Maternity services are already under very serious pressure with deaths rising.

I’m surprised the main news sites haven’t picked it up yet, unless it’s hiding somewhere.

That does seem an extremely dramatic budget cut. You have to hope that there is some solid reasoning behind it, would certainly be interested to understand why.
Maternity services already seem to be struggling. I'm having to choose a different city further away to give both because the 2 places closer to me have really terrible ratings since I last gave birth and are subject to ongoing reporting due to their need to improve.

I think it’s a specific pot, that was put in place after a safety review. There’s no information I have found yet about if it’s being made up from pots elsewhere or whether the whole funding is being reorganised … found a lovely headline saying Viagra gets more funding than women’s health though.

This is one hell of a sexist country.

I’m starting to seriously question where my tax money is going, out of the incredible amount that I pay each year, I believe my doctors surgery only gets about 1.4% of that! That is crazy to me and now they are cutting more NHS services that I could potentially need to use in the future. If my tax money is not going to the NHS where is it going?

It’s also the one area that doesn’t get covered by people’s private health insurances as well, so it definitely needs funding!

I’ve often wished (typos corrected) I could get my hands on the nations accounts, however long it would take me to read 1% of them and understand another 1% of that 🤪! I do know however that privatisation takes up public funds and that those funds are then transferred by way of profit into the pockets of individual shareholders. There’s many other ways public funds are transferred- housing is a big one. The state is simply not functioning at these times because there is too much going into the hands of too few, who are not feeding it back to those who work to provide the resources in the first place. They’re building incredible levels of private luxury out of what could go to benefit all of us.

It’s often easier to go back to first principles and think of the resources, not the money that represents them. The water that falls from the sky should not be in the hands of a few billionaires.

It’s terrible, I personally know two people who have endured a stillbirth in the last two years. Considering the stats on stillbirth this is horrifying and indicates how badly our local services are struggling

Women always seem to struggle to get our health needs taken seriously. The patriarchy is real. Men as a group are apparently quite happy to watch those here face a rising risk of death to bring new life.

Finally on the BBC. Naturally rather low down the priority listings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwynqx77dn5o

It seems Streeting is giving the same level of the funding to the ICB’s and disavowing responsibility for how it is spent. I’m on the fence about that, it would be good to see more decentralisation again - but what’s the chances of it being given to women’s health? And why are the first moves to decentralisation coming from women’s budgets?

This is why birth rates are dropping around the world, because women are not valued, and I personally would not want to be giving birth in this country right now.