The Royal College of Midwives has expressed deep disappointment at the Government’s renewed Women’s Health Strategy, describing it as a missed opportunity to address maternity services.

The RCM’s Chief Executive, Gill Walton said:

“We are deeply disappointed that maternity services do not feature as a headline priority in today’s renewed Women’s Health Strategy. This is a significant missed opportunity and one that is very difficult to understand.

“Pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period are not a footnote in women’s health – they are one of the most significant and consequential phases of a woman’s life. A strategy that treats maternity as an afterthought is not truly a women’s health strategy at all. It is exactly the kind of thinking that has allowed maternity services to reach the point they are at today.

“Today’s strategy does contain important commitments on ensuring women’s voices shape their care, on supporting families through pregnancy loss and on the principle that services should be held accountable when they fail to listen to women. But a strategy that addresses one part of women’s health while leaving maternity care behind is only doing half the job.

“We urge the Health Secretary to ensure that when the Amos and Ockenden recommendations are published, they are placed at the very heart of this strategy with the seriousness and urgency that women, families and midwives deserve.”