Midwifery staffing crisis

[Madwife123]

For those of you who are not aware there is currently a huge midwifery staffing crisis in the U.K.

We are losing staff faster than we can train them and almost half of midwives currently in practice are looking for ways out. Sadly myself included.

This means pregnant women are simply not getting the care they deserve. We are desperately trying to fix this and are calling on the government to help tackle this issue before services become completely unsafe.

Please have a look on Facebook for a group called March with Midwives U.K.

Don’t think I’m allowed to post the link sorry. There is a vigil planned which would be great if we can get as many people to join as possible. Or if not then it helps sharing your story of poor care you’ve received, delays in appointments etc. any adverse outcome you have had so we can evidence the effect this is having on women.

Please help us make maternity services safer!

This has been quite a hard read, but I fully understand the need to raise awareness of the situation.

Can I ask, is it the same across the whole of the UK? As I know so many differences between, for example, NHS England and NHS Scotland within Diagnostic Radiography.

I met with my midwife at our local community hospital last week. I told her that I want a home birth and she said that was fine. There is no way I am giving birth in a hospital, though apparently my local isn’t that bad at the moment. It makes me sad because my great aunt was a midwife at the community hospital I visited. It was a beautiful birth centre until 10 years ago when it was cruelly forced shut. The problem with the current model is it tries to over medicalise birth and have women in Hospital when in actuality most births do not need intervention, or a hospital. Maybe if all our wonderful midwifes became holistic birth workers, and looked at a different working model outside of the crap NHS, we could actually have a birth service that is worthy of women and their care providers.

@unknownscot I know it’s the same across England and I believe Scotland also has a midwifery shortage but I don’t know to what level.

@madwife123

I have my 16 week appt today and my midwife told me about this and the vigil. It's just terrible.

I do actually have extensive private health care. Can you access private midwifery services through this?

I hope things can only get better 💕

I’m not surprised at all sadly. I had my second child early September. Went to the drs for a sweep on Friday at 11am. Saw my usual midwife.
Went into labour overnight and rang the labour ward at 7am. My midwife answered the phone. Went in at 9am and she checked me in. Apologised that she wouldn’t be staying as she’d been on shift all night.
I then had to be moved from the MLU to the labour ward as they were so busy and didn’t have a bed for me.
Had baby at 12.04 and was discharged at 3.30pm.
My midwife rang me the next day (Sunday) and asked if we could do our appt over the phone as she had too many appts and not enough time. I asked her how many hours she’d worked the last few days. She had done a full day in clinic on Friday. On call Friday night and was called in at 2am. Left at 9am. Did a few afternoon visits that day. Then a full day of house visits on the Sunday.

That’s not sustainable for any length of time!
And the result of the understaffing is that barely any HCPs saw my baby for weeks. Midwife appt over the phone. Breastfeeding consult over the phone. Health visitor over the phone and then in person as my daughter was jaundice.
It’s my second and it was all very straightforward so I was happy to do it that way. But it would’ve been very hard to cope with if it were my first!