Nurses in Maternity Care: Royal College of Nursing report (July 2019)

Summary

This report by the Royal College of Nursing has been produced from the analysis of a workforce survey designed to explore the employment and role-specific training and continuing professional development (CPD) of registered nurses and unregistered support staff working in maternity services across the UK.

Content

The aim of the UK-wide survey was to obtain a snapshot of the structure of, and role-specific training and CPD provision for, the non medical, non-midwifery maternity workforce. The objectives were to:

• determine the ratio of unregistered staff to registered midwives in the maternity services
• determine the number of maternity services where nursing associates were employed
• determine the number of maternity services where registered nurses were employed in areas other than neonatal care
• determine the areas of work for registered nurses in maternity care
• gather information about the role-specific training offered to non-midwives at induction and as CPD during employment.

This survey is intended to add to the conversation on some aspects of the workforce and skill mix in maternity services. As a result of the findings the following recommendations are made:

• the opportunity should be created for a stakeholder engagement event to disseminate findings and consider aspects requiring further exploration, which may include:
  • future training needs analysis work to explore role-specific training for non-midwifery staff (registered or unregistered) in maternity services, to clarify what should be provided.
• to look at utilising these findings in the wider work being carried out within the RCN safe and effective staffing campaign (RCN 2019). Although the RCN campaign is focused on nursing, these survey results may inform work on both midwifery and nursing staffing.

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