Student midwife worried about no NHS job after qualifying

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Hi everyone,
I'm a mum of four and a third-year student midwife. When I started my degree, three of my children were in primary school. Over the last three years I've missed countless assemblies, performances, sports days and family time while training to support women and babies. I absolutely love what I'm doing.
Despite a national midwifery staffing shortage, many newly qualified midwives now have no jobs to go to when we qualify. The NHS promised me a job when I started my degree, but that guarantee was withdrawn earlier this year. I done this to better our lives and now it feels like I wasted my time and built a huge debt.
I've co-founded a student-led campaign calling for funding to ensure newly qualified midwives can enter the workforce. I'd be so grateful if you could sign and share our petition - www.change.org/FundFutureMidwivesUK
I'd also love to hear any positive stories about a student midwife who made a difference to your pregnancy or birth experience ❤️.

Gosh you have sacrificed so much. Why are there no jobs ??

Signed. A student midwife delivered my first child and the care and skill she brought was amazing. I will always be grateful.

The student midwife i had with me gor my last baby was the person you would obsolutely want with you when having a baby.
She was kind,considerate and genuinely excited to met my baby whilst being perfectly professional.
This was ment to be my final child but told her I would consider another but only if she led the delievery as a fully qualified.
I really hope the job stays that special for her because it really did bring a brightness to the room.

Hey OP, just to let you know we are moving this one over to petitions. Hope you get the support you need over there.

I’ve heard about this from a friend in your position OP - really shocking for people like you have invested years of time and effort to be told there are no jobs.

I thought the issue was particularly acute in London - that there are no vacancies there but are elsewhere. Is that not right?

Why are there no jobs?

The previous government created more training places. But there was no funding allocated to then employ said individuals once they qualified. In addition, hospitals are under significant financial constraints, most are being asked to save tens of millions of pounds every year. Nurse and midwives were imported from overseas, on permanent contracts at significant cost and can’t now be let go. So the homegrown newly qualified are fucked.

Same with nurses, physios, OTs and SaLTs. Loads of graduates with huge loans and no jobs-it’s dreadful!

My eldest dd is in exactly this position. Single mum of 3 and she has worked so bloody hard for the past three years. I am beyond proud of her work ethic and her diligence and it seems crazy that she and most of her year will, in October, be fighting for jobs when they have been used as free labour for three years to help and support the nhs.
It really scares me

We're not in London. It's the same everywhere.

Yep same for radiotherapy and radiography too. DD is in second year and told at placements there’s a ban on external recruitment in the Trust due to budget cuts. People on her course are thinking of giving up but she’s worked so hard and has already got over £30k of student debt (tuition fees & maintenance loan already).

She’s been told GPs are being made redundant too due to budgets.

Also the same for doctors, few of whom can move from resident doctor to a specialism that will lead to a consultant role.

Too much money in NHS spent on EDI czars.

How big is the gap between what we need and what we have? If they just stopped training midwives for a year would it right itself or are we talking a decade?

Paramedics too

This is awful 😞 and I really feel for you.
what I would say is that in our nhs there is ALWAYS a lot of bank shifts available to book and so I’d say get yourself registered on the bank so you are visible to wanting to work and getting to know people etc….

Although bank work isn’t a substantive post (which they should absolutely be doing) it is a way in and can offer a level of flexibility for people.

good luck with the petition will share with nhs colleagues for you on our staff facebook and various wattsapp groups I belong too.

For newly qualified midwives, it's a nationwide problem. Just seems crazy when we have national shortages. Lots of healthcare professionals are in this position.

So where do they get people from?

signed

I’m a nurse and the problem is you need your preceptorship done in most nursing/midwifery bank positions otherwise you can’t. In my trust it was 18 months registered and working in a substantive position with all your competencies signed off before you could get your manager to agree.

its such a stark contrast cos I trained during Covid and we all were guaranteed jobs, so much of the workforce were off or left shielding or didn’t want to take the risk and we could all give 3 choices of where we’d want to work. Now we’re told the recruitment freeze is to save money yet we’re spending so much on agency to cover the short staffing and it’s worse than ever and patient safety is suffering more than ever before. I really feel for those qualifying, we’ve had so many students that have been recently 2 years before they can find a job and it’s not a case of following their passion in an area they want, just anywhere they can get a job

Five years ago, workforce planners warned that around a third of the UK's midwifery workforce was approaching retirement age within the following decade. Despite these warnings and an ongoing shortage of midwives, newly qualified midwives are now struggling to secure NHS jobs. It doesn't make any sense, and is quite scary for the future of maternity.

Complain to your MP. Contact the media.
It's an outrage.

I have. We are getting decent media coverage too. We just need more signatures on the petition now. We need to reach a wider audience now. Hoping people will sign and share the petition.x

This is so awful that you have made such an effort to potentially have no job at the end of it! Sorry if I’m being thick, but can you give us a bit of a breakdown of why this is happening? There’s a shortage of healthcare workers of various kinds (midwives, nurses etc) so people have trained to do the job, but now there’s no jobs - is this because the older generation of workers haven’t retired yet? importing foreign labour? Or are they not increasing the quantity of midwives etc, even though they are needed, due to budget cuts?

Most of NHS staff face this. Not only students. It's brutal at the moment.