Trusts given five years to achieve safe midwife staffing
NHS trusts have been given until 2027-28 to employ enough midwives to meet safe staffing requirements, NHS England’s new maternity delivery plan has said.
The three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services sets out to “make maternity and neonatal care safer, more personalised and more equitable for women, babies and families”.
It says: “Trusts will meet establishment [requirements] set by midwifery staffing tools and achieve fill rates by 2027-28, with new tools to guide safe staffing for other professions from 2023-24.”
The plan follows a series of high-profile maternity scandals in the NHS at Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Morecambe Bay and an ongoing independent review by Donna Ockenden into Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. The Care Quality Commission has highlighted a string of other concerns across the NHS.
Source: HSJ, 31 March 2023