To think if 91 midwives from one trust are under Fitness to Practice proceedings there's a problem with the trust

[JulietteHasAGun]

Rather than the individuals? So work load and staffing, procedures, training?

Nobody wants bad/rubbish staff to go unchecked but I struggle to believe that what must be a significant chunk of the staff are that bad? Scapegoat anyone?

It will suit Wes Streeting, etc to throw individuals under the bus rather than admit that the unit hasn't been staffed sufficiently.

There is currently an investigation ongoing (and a concurrent police criminal investigation) - how many investigations do maternity services need where the results talk about staffing levels and still the govt don't fund maternity services better.

The amount of obs and gynae compensation pay outs is over a third of the total obs and gynae budget and increasing massively every year.

Women need to be up in arms. The NMC are in cahoots with the govt and are doing bugger all about it. The RCM union are useless.

I can bet what;s going to happen now - midwives there will go off sick and/or leave. Who is going to staff the unit then? People will be put off training as midwives - why would you when you see this publicity. Interesting it's the female midwives being thrown under the bus....I don't see anything about any doctors being held to account!

I think this could be the end of Midwifery. These investigations are going to spiral and the blame be put in the wrong place. The govt are not going to admit they should have increased funding, the trusts aren't going to admit they should have employed more staff.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council suspends midwife in maternity probe - BBC News

85 open complaints against Nottingham nurses and midwives

Yep, same with lots of NHS staff. The Trusts don’t have the money to employ them.

I agree with this.

After my first, I had a PPH. When it came to breakfast time, I still couldn’t even stand without my vision going, and keeling over. DH wasn’t allowed to go to the breakfast room to get me breakfast (fair enough, women in their pjs first thing, so it was a women-only breakfast room), but when I asked one of the HCAs if someone could bring me some food you’d have thought I’d asked for the moon.
But on other wards, patients who are unable to stand without fainting are brought their meals without being treated like they’re making an unreasonable fuss!

I met some nasty ones when I was in the postnatal ward, they just gave the impression they didn't care tbh. It was my first child. I had had a long labour and was bloody exhausted 😩. On a positive note, the care was fantastic with the other three DC. Especially my youngest's NICU experience. I am sure most midwives do care, they just become hardened to the job. They'll see all sorts of not-so-nice stuff but most of the general public don't think of that image of the midwife.

Yes this is why I only have one child. I gave birth in Brighton hospital in 2015 and had an awful experience.

when I asked one of the HCAs if someone could bring me some food you’d have thought I’d asked for the moon

Me too. The vibe honestly felt like begging a prison warden for favours. They somehow make you feel as if you ought to be apologetic for just being on the ward at all.

Op says "how can 91 midwives be horrible" - but op can't you see how the culture of dehumanising can spread? That was my point about being called Bed 44.

A student midwife might come in with empathy and kindness but see the way other midwives scoff, belittle, ignore or minimise concerns...and start to copy that.

I do not think it particularly correlates with being overworked or understaffed.

Some of the kindest, warmest health care I've ever received was in A+E and you can't tell me they aren't overworked!

I had my twins in St Thomas' in Westminster. They were great at antenatal but for the birth and post natal they were literally so bad. Inhuman. HORRIBLE. I cant even go into the details because I find it all too distressing even now and my twins are 11 but honestly these were some of the most horrible people ive ever had the misfortune of coming across in a public facing role. Except for one student midwife who helped me up when I fainted in the shower and helped me wash myself. All the others can get fucked. Honestly. I wouldnt want them looking after prisoners. And no they weren't overstaffed. In postnatal I was the only woman in a ward of 6. They were just horrible people.

Sadly women can be very nasty with other women. A friend who has a 15 year old (so it wasn't all that long ago) says that on the hospital antenatal course, the midwife lectured them like they were little kids. She said they all had to have natural births (statistically very unlikely) and must breastfeed (how would she know if some of them had had cancer/experienced abuse/many other things that might affect things?); if someone like this was in charge, could she influence all the others to be like this? More recently, a brave student nurse spoke out against some of the abusive nurses on the stroke ward in Blackpool hospital-look at the way they behaved.

Unfortunate consequences of some NHS units having cultures that saw encouraging natural childbirth as their job. The rot was there at institutional level- the RCB didn't end their Campaign for Normal Birth until 2017, for example.

Three DCs in the 90s. First delivery risked my DC's life. Failed to suction swallowed meconium after a 48 hour labour - should this have been done by a neonatal nurse/dr? Then left overnight with no care. Eventually, cold and listless DC taken to SCBU being fed through a tube. Had to beg to BF. On the ward the only person who helped with BF was a lovely cleaner.
Second delivery retained placenta so D&C. Had to slide along wall to get own breakfast as legs not working properly. Third, had more of a clue but not believed when ready to push. Zero pain relief and told off when exclaimed 'Jesus Christ' during a contraction. Had hoped things would be humane by now (well, back then too, ffs!). Just don't understand why the culture was, and is, so bad. There were some kind midwives but sadly I remember the other ones.

I think the reality might be somewhat different

www.change.org/p/protect-the-future-of-midwifery-jobs-fair-funding-safe-care/exp/cl_/cl_sharecopy_491054048_en-GB/10/685591874?recruiter=685591874&recruited_by_id=b897ac20-3500-11e8-a414-f7e3aa94a7fb&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=psf_membership&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_491054048_en-GB%3A10

I’ve no idea why women should have to get up and get their meals - they should be nurtured and cared for. Giving birth, even when it goes well is such a body and mind changing event. Other wards bring food to their patients! Obviously movement is important to prevent DVT but ….

The wards especially are very task based now due to the volume of people and so rather than caring, the focus is on obs, drug rounds, discharge paperwork. This leads to this dehumanization of people and they become ‘bed 44’ as you say.

The government need to be looking at how can we make maternity care safe and caring, what would work well for women and babies and actually act on those things. We need to get away from factory like processing and seeing ‘patients’ as tasks

So I have given birth in both NZ and the UK, and the experiences were so vastly different.

NZ - had the same midwife most of the way through, the only reason my midwife had to change was because i was put under perinatal mental health and was given a specialist midwife. It's uncommon for people to change midwives in NZ though. You also typically have the same midwife attend the birth that you've seen the entire way through.

• pain relief came pretty much as soon as you asked for it
• breastfeeding support was fantastic and it wasn't uncommon for midwives to spend quite awhile with people establishing feeding (the average length of stay in NZ is also longer even for uncomplicated births, and it's in a private room, no shared bays)
• the midwives were incredibly supportive in labour. And the several admissions I had before labour.

In the UK:

• never saw the same person more then twice
• waited hours for painkillers.
• asked for help changing baby's nappy - I was only several hours post C-section and he had been put in the bassinet, was struggling to reach him, midwife rolled her and was very short.
• communication was terrible regarding what the plan was as there complications for both baby and I.

I would never chose to have another baby in the UK as it was such a shit experience.

But it does appear to be a wider cultural issue and that's much harder to address

When I had my twins, the consultant doing her ward round asked me how I was and I said ‘hungry’ so she went off and came back with a tray of food for me . Much nicer that most of the midwives ( some were ok)

100%. And I think a lot of this is due to systems and management and processes. The need to keep people moving through the conveyor belt because there’s not enough beds either on Labour ward or the postnatal ward. It’s all task focused and has lost sight of the people.

@taxcon interestingly one of the last big maternity investigations said women need continuity of midwife as it improves care. Was the big thing for a year or so and then trusts said they couldn’t implement it as too expensive 🤷‍♀️. So the government know what needs to be done. But instead of acting, they bury their heads in the sand and just keep ordering more investigations. Which will likely have the same conclusions. With the added bonus of some individual blame.

I had a relatively positive birth experience, but even in the middle of labour could pick up on the weird dysfunctional vibe between the midwives and doctors, which I’ve never experienced between doctors and other health professionals. Totally inappropriate for a patient to pick up on. Some of the postnatal midwives seemed genuinely sadistic. And my community midwife dropped me like a hot stone as soon as it became clear I wasn’t going to be one of her “success stories” as I wasn’t going to the midwife led unit and was being induced and monitored. This was 8 years ago so before the latest issues.

Continuity of care and especially carer is the absolute gold standard in outcomes. Aside from cost, the biggest hurdle with this is being on call 24/7 for say 3 months at a time and then a month off. The long break is great but how can childcare be organised and never being ‘off call’ is extremely hard.
The Albany midwives in Peckham had this model and women’s satisfaction was very high. Sadly the Albany midwives don’t exist anymore.

I’m really interested to hear how the hospital based maternity service works in NZ. Are there core midwives there? What is the staff-woman ratio? Is the model nhs or insurance?

It would be great if we could look at success stories and use them in the UK.

Gosh these are terrible to read, poor women.

I feel very fortunate that in our health board in Wales we generally see the same community midwife throughout, have private rooms and the care has always been excellent for both my children (one 2022 and one is 3 months old so 2025)

Admittedly things like breastfeeding advice or help was crap in 2022, not sure about now as fortunately I didn’t require assistance second time round

They did try and send me to get all my own meals even though I couldn’t walk for my first baby, they didn’t do that this time everything was brought to my room, regular tea coffee drinks offered, regular obs and check-ins

Theres around 400/420 births per month for our health board, one main university hospital for births and c-sections, a few birth centres, not sure how this compares or how “busy” this is

I generally see a lot of positive comments on their Facebook page, we must be extremely fortunate

If I could design maternity services, I’d have kind and caring staff, clean and safe units, single en-suite rooms, plenty of nurturing, breastfeeding supporters, access to drinks and snacks 24/7.
The ratio of women to midwife 1:4. The opening of step down cottage hospitals for longer postnatal recovery. A team of known and trusted midwives (4 or something) who do all the care. A core staff on the wards who are experts in their areas.
Perinatal mental health and trauma support would be vital. Access to a certain number of postnatal physio appointments for recovery.

that would be my starting points!

I think it’s a problem with multiple complex interlinked causes.

But at a very very high and crude level I think it’s a combination of: underfunding; cost cutting; staffing pressures; falling standards; heavy misogyny and a ‘labours of Eve’ culture; an ideological drive with ‘natural birth’ (which links back to cost-cutting but also is what midwives are trained to handle); and toxic turf wars between midwives and doctors which I don’t think occur in quite the same way between nurses and doctors in other medical disciplines.

The thing that really gets me is that these maternity scandals aren’t NEW. I remember reading about Morecambe and the group of midwives who were so cavalier in their pursuit of natural birth at any cost that they were nicknamed ‘the musketeers’ well over a decade ago. Yet there have been several scandal-hit trusts since then; so many dead or injured babies; so many dead, injured or traumatised mothers; and still nothing seems to change.

I had some pretty awful experiences with midwives in my two childbirths. And one amazing midwife who was with me in my first labour who was treated appallingly by the rest of the maternity staff (led by a consultant). After my first baby was born by emergency c section I was given barely any pain relief (a couple of paracetamol occasionally when they felt like it) and when I got upset about how much pain I was in I was told I was being emotional and I needed to suck it up. They also huffed about helping me to breastfeed (often shoving baby to the breast and then leaving, telling me he was fine and then a few days later berating me about how he was dehydrated and why hadn’t I noticed his feeding wasn’t good enough even though I was continually asking for help). Then after forcing me to give him formula decided in the middle of the night they were not going to provide anymore formula even though they’d told me they would be providing it because they were making me feed him on a plan. It was the middle of the night and my husband wasn’t allowed in due to Covid so I had no way of getting anymore. My second experience wasn’t much better, I was given a student midwife and refused anyone more experienced so they could basically force me into a section against my wishes or any medical need. They just knew I wouldn’t want to risk someone who hadn’t even delivered more than a handful of babies alone. I made a complaint and spoke to the head of midwifery who did apologise and offered me a named dedicated experienced midwife if I ever wanted to have more babies but my experience has definitely put me off.

This definitely chimes with my experience.

I rang the bell for help in the night because he weed on his blankets and I couldn't get the swaddle right. The woman came over from the loud chat they were having and stood there watching me struggle before eventually very snottily asking if I wanted the help I had explicitly asked for when she came over.

Other midwives were rough and brusque in their discussions and don't get me started on the HV.

Only the trainees and one nice home midwife were actually humane and constructive in their interactions.

I feel like after this we could have a "nice midwives I had" appreciation thread because there were some lovely ones.

But I feel grimly validated to hear other mums come across cruel and sadistic ones in the postnatal ward too. They should absolutely be investigated for their fitness to practise, and should not get to hide behind blaming the "system" or the Trust, or being short staffed or anything else.

There is always a moment, when natural empathy is squashed down in their mind and they choose to be cruel instead.

Coming back to this point from op:

What I’m trying to say (and possibly explaining badly) is will the investigation actually be able to look at such behaviour though due to a dearth of evidence.

I'm utterly sure that behind every single story of clinical neglect, there would have been several instances of "the mum tried to ask for help/treatment and was ignored/contradicted/dismissed". I trust that any investigations would bring these instances to light.

Every time you hear of a maternity tragedy in the news, absolutely every time, it's reported that the mum tried to raise an alarm in some way but was ignored or not believed.

So any investigation, even a historical one, is definitely going to include asking the patient "what did the midwife say to you", as long as the patient is available to be asked.