Another privately run midwife service goes bust

[RedToothBrush]

In efforts to improve care and continuity of care, the NHS decided to outsource to private midwife services.

It was viewed as the way forward.

In January of this year Neighbour Midwives stopped operating suddenly without explanation. Leaving midwives out of a job and women left in the lurch. It gave 5 days notice.
amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/02/nhs-axes-personal-midwife-project?__twitter_impression=true
Left in the lurch: mothers-to-be devastated as maternity scheme ends

Yesterday another similar service, One to One midwives in the North West, ceased operating. It gave two days notice.
www.mcht.nhs.uk/about-us/news/one-to-one-midwives/

It's absolutely appalling.

That’s awful and must feel devastating to the women involved

It’s not clear from the article why the companies folded? Of course you could argue that this service is too important to farm out to a private company that could fold

I know a lot of independent midwives have had to stop practising due to the cost/scarcity of insurance cover. I don't know if this is linked though.

It's shocking and must be so worrying for the women involved, plus of course for the midwives who will be losing their jobs.

NHS care should not be being contracted out though and this is just one of the reasons why!

Bernard
From this
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_Midwives
In its last accounts its liabilities exceeded its assets by over £900,000.

So insolvency.

And NHS did nothing to set out provisions if similar circumstances arose. 5 months down the line the same thing has happened again with one to one through insolvency.

People must have known for some time this was on the cards, yet they carried on taking on patients and didn't put measures in for a repeat.

This is really crap. I feel for everyone affected, including the midwives.

I work in the private sector with nothing as important as people’s health

Where we outsource a vital function, we automatically do quarterly credit checks on the companies involved, and often have a back up contract with a third company to be invoked if it all goes tits up with the current provider

When I think of the effort I go to to ensure continuity for something so relatively insignificant and compare it to this

Well, it’s bonkers

NHS Trusts themselves are now having to offer the continuity model to women (currently 20% of all new bookings into the service) following recommendations from the Better Births report.

This'll offer more choice to women within the NHS and I suspect why Neighbourhood and 1-2-1 have suffered. Whether it is financially sustainable (and midwife sustainable) remains to be seen.

The midwives themselves only found out this was happening in an email at 11am yesterday. They are all devastated let alone concerned for the women whom were about to birth underneath their services over the next few days /weeks - they all now will have to be signposted elsewhere and may not get the birth they had planned!

This is appalling. Women being deprived of the option to give birth the way they need to, with continuity of support. A civilised nation should make that the cornerstone of their endeavours, seeing as the entire edifice is built on women giving birth to the next generation.

Can you imagine being a woman about to give birth, and finding this out? The stress! My independent midwife broke a rib, had to call in reinforcements, and that was unsettling enough.

Awful. Midwifery and continuity of care for pregnant and birthing women is so important - and women are being failed in so many ways.

Appalling. Thanks for sharing

I live in an area where Neighbourhood Midwives practised. I’m pretty sure that they continued to provide care to all women already booked to give birth with them. I think I saw a photo on social media recently of the last woman to give birth under their care.

I was with one to one and got a call from my midwife yesterday to say they had gone into administration, I’m absolutely gutted. I had my first baby with them and it was so reassuring to see the same midwife throughout. Luckily I’m only 13 weeks but I still feel a bit anxious about the care I’ll receive going forward, my GP said I probably won’t have an appointment at 16 weeks because the midwife is booked up.