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Crucial campaign launched at Westminster this week
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The RCM has set out five clear priorities which will improve maternity safety – and is calling on Health Secretary Wes Streeting to act now
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is calling on the Government to take urgent action to address chronic staffing shortages in maternity services that are putting women, babies and staff at risk.
The Safe Staffing = Safe Care campaign sets out five clear asks for policymakers, including dedicated long-term funding, protected learning time for midwives and maternity support workers, stronger professional leadership in maternity services, investment in prevention and cultural competence, and urgent improvements to crumbling maternity estates.
The campaign was launched in Parliament on Tuesday (20 January), with 50 MPs and peers. At the event midwives, maternity support workers and student midwives spoke about the realities of providing care in under-staffed services – and why safer staffing would help improve maternity safety in the long-term.
RCM Chief Executive Gill Walton said unsafe staffing levels were now a daily reality across maternity services and warned that midwives were being held to account for systemic failures beyond their control.
She said: “When midwives are working excessively long shifts without a break, driving home exhausted and returning the next day expected to provide safe, compassionate care, we have to ask: how can we expect exhausted midwives to provide the safest care? It’s simply unacceptable to ask this of our dedicated maternity staff in this day and age. As part of our campaign, we’re telling the Government: enough is enough.”
The RCM says there is overwhelming evidence that safe staffing saves lives. However, despite 748 recommendations on maternity safety made over the past decade, progress has been slow and inconsistent, with women and babies continuing to suffer avoidable harm. Last week, new data showed that maternal deaths in the UK are 20% higher than they were a decade ago.
Gill added: “The scale of the challenge is well known. What’s missing is urgent, decisive action backed by ring-fenced, sustainable funding. Without safe staffing, care simply cannot be safe.”
“Our members didn’t sugar-coat the reality,” said Gill. “They told MPs exactly what it’s like on wards, in clinics and providing care in women’s homes. This is taking a huge toll on their working lives. What we’re hoping is that MPs will take what they heard to Wes Streeting and work with us on urgently demanding change.”
The event was hosted by MPs Paul Waugh and Sam Rushworth, who worked with the RCM on the launch after meeting with the RCM at the Labour Conference in September.
Speaking at the event, Paul Waugh said: “Midwives are really important to every woman in the country who is preparing to give birth or has given birth. There is a maternity crisis in the UK, and this campaign is all about making sure we have a safe level of staffing. There’s a lot more we can do with the Government. Midwives are crucial to every community in the country, and I’m hoping we can get across to the Government that safe staffing is central to any reform that we make to make choice and safety a reality for women and their families.”
Student midwife Khadijah Madden, who attended the event, said: “It has been a really great experience – the MPs have been really engaging, listening to us and giving us feedback and I feel really encouraged about how things are going to go in the future.”
As part of the Safe Staffing = Safe Care campaign, the RCM is calling on Government to:
- Deliver safe staffing through dedicated, multi-year funding via a national maternity and neonatal action plan to end chronic understaffing in hospital and community settings.
- Protect a learning profession by providing midwives and maternity support workers with 52 hours of protected, salaried time to supervise students and complete essential continuing professional development.
- Amplify midwives’ voices by mandating a Director of Midwifery in every Trust and ensuring sufficient consultant midwives are in post as a non-negotiable standard.
- Improve health and prevention by funding protected time for midwives and MSWs to develop cultural competence and deliver safe, equitable care for every mother and birthing person.
- Invest in workplaces and birthplaces by prioritising poor maternity estates for urgent improvement through ring-fenced capital funding.
The RCM says it stands ready to work constructively with Government to deliver meaningful change.
Gill said: “Women, babies and maternity staff deserve safe, high-quality services. The future of midwifery and the safety of those we care for must be at the heart of every decision Government makes, starting now. This is one of the most important campaigns we’ve launched and we won’t stop until changes are made for good.”
Further information on why the RCM has launched the campaign can be found on this blog post.
