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King's Fund report on midwife staffing levels
New Kings Fund Publication - Staffing in maternity units: getting the right people in the right place at the right time
Barely a month goes by without an article in the press on the shortage of midwives and hard-pressed maternity departments struggling with their workload. But is it just about the numbers of staff, or could the situation be improved if maternity services changed the way they use their current workforce?
This report concludes that the key to improving maternity care is to use midwives and other maternity staff more effectively. It focuses specifically on labour and birth and considers the evidence on the relationships between staffing levels and deployment practices and safety of care for mothers and babies. It sets out the policy background and the workforce issues currently faced by maternity services.
Its conclusions include:
- Midwife-led models of care should be deployed across the service for low- and medium-risk women, releasing obstetricians to focus on women with more complex needs.
- New and emerging models of care suggest there is potential for cost savings while maintaining levels of safety, particularly the shifting of tasks between nurses, midwives and doctors, as well as the use of maternity support workers and doulas.
- The Birthrate Plus tool needs to be developed into a multi-professional tool to allow effective planning across the different professions.
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/document.rm?id=8973
There is also a blog on the report –with interesting responses from midwives and others – by one of the report’s authors – Natasha Curry.
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/maternity_staffing.html
