Latest news with #RoyalCollegeOfMidwives
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Ministers urged to guarantee NHS jobs for new midwives amid understaffing
A student midwife who fears she will be unable to get a job after completing 2,300 hours of unpaid placement work in the NHS is calling for guaranteed posts for newly qualified midwives who otherwise will be forced to abandon the profession before their careers begin. Aimee Peach, 43, is due to complete her training next summer, but says the promise of a job at the end of her three-year degree course has 'collapsed', despite severe shortages of midwives across the country. 'It is a waste of talent, training and public money, and the consequences will be felt by families across the country,' she said. 'There are so many of us that just want to work as midwives after three years of gruelling training, but we're having to face the fact that, after all this, there may be only a handful of jobs available.' Last month, a survey by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) found that eight out of 10 student midwives due to qualify this year were not confident of finding a job after graduating despite understaffing in maternity care. Some services have had to close temporarily due to unsafe levels of staffing. According to the RCM, funding cuts and recruitment freezes have tied the hands of midwifery managers who are desperate to hire staff. Fiona Gibb, the RCM's director of midwifery, said: 'Report after report cites understaffing as a factor in the delivery of safe care, and midwives consistently share with us that there are too few of them to deliver the best care they know they can. 'Despite this, midwifery graduates face uncertainty, with too few vacancies for them to begin work upon qualification … The new midwives who are now ready are finding that the jobs simply aren't there.' Peach, from Bridgwater, Somerset, has combined academic study with on-the-job training and caring for her three children since beginning her midwifery degree. Student midwives must complete 2,300 hours of work placements and deliver 40 babies to qualify. She had hoped the qualification would lead to a higher household income and good career prospects as well as pursuing her commitment to improving women's experience of pregnancy and birth. 'It's been a pretty hard couple of years, both physically and mentally, but I had a goal in sight. No one chooses midwifery to have a comfortable job – you have to have a passion for it,' she said. That passion helped her through unpaid 12-hour shifts, sometimes at night. On occasion she has slept in the back of her car on her placement more than 80 miles from her home. 'After all this, we now face the scary prospect that we might not get jobs.' Earlier this month, Peach wrote to her MP, Ashley Fox, to draw his attention to the problem. 'A recent national search for band 5 [newly qualified] midwifery roles revealed just four vacancies across England despite an estimated national shortage of over 2,500 midwives,' she wrote. 'I have witnessed first-hand the consequences of understaffing and burnout in maternity services, yet thousands of qualified professionals are unable to secure employment. There is no shortage of qualified midwives, only a shortage of funded positions.' Peach asked Fox to back a call for guaranteed NHS jobs for newly qualified midwives, increased funding for maternity services and for student debt to be cancelled for healthcare workers who complete five years of continuous NHS service. Fox replied saying he would seek an opportunity to raise the matter in parliament. Gibb said: 'Having enough midwives, in the right places, with the right skills and training is fundamental to the safety improvements that are desperately needed across maternity services. 'We are calling on all four national UK governments to review their midwifery workforce planning approach and call a halt to the recruitment freezes that are preventing women and their families from receiving the care they need and deserve.' A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: 'Student nurses and midwives like Aimee are our future workforce and it is unacceptable that they are unable to find roles. 'NHS England has set up a dedicated programme of work with employers, educators and trade unions to address this. 'We will revise the workforce plan later this year, to ensure the NHS has the right people in the right place, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need.'
Telegraph
28-06-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
NHS trains midwives in trans breastfeeding workshops
NHS midwives have been trained by a trans workshop that promotes male breastfeeding, The Telegraph can reveal. The Queer Birth Club runs 'LGBTQ+' competency and lactation classes, using the tag line 'birthing people ain't all women'. The group has provided training sessions for NHS England and a number of trusts across the UK, and its founder has given talks at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). One nurse who raised concerns about the training is now facing disciplinary action. The NHS worker told The Telegraph: 'The content of these sessions undermines established clinical standards and introduces extreme ideological beliefs that have no place in healthcare settings.' Campaigners last night called for the NHS to carry out an immediate review to ensure that 'training and care provision is urgently grounded in biological reality'. The Queer Birth Club has said that it has also provided training in universities and its courses are embedded in some midwifery and doula training programs. It promotes breastfeeding by trans women and claims that it is 'transmisogyny' to say that the milk produced by biological men is 'less'. This is despite concerns over the safety of the milk, which is produced after taking a series of medications to induce lactation. Domperidone, the drug commonly used to stimulate lactation, was not intended for this purpose, but is prescribed off-label by doctors. Janssen, which manufactures the drug, has recommended against it because of possible side effects to a baby's heart. Concerns have also been raised about the impact testosterone could have on babies who are being naturally breastfed by trans men. The Queer Birth Club say that their 'lactation competency' training, which they advertise with a cartoon of a person breastfeeding with the message 'trans joy' covers 'inducing lactation, feeding after top surgery, co-nursing'. Another of their posts on social media shows a drawing of a person with a beard and a pregnancy bump with the slogan: 'Boys have babies too.' The club has previously provided 'cultural awareness' training for midwives through NHS England and courses for a number of NHS trusts across the UK. It is listed as a recommended resource on several NHS websites. AJ Silver, the founder of The Queer Birth Club who identifies as non-binary, has also appeared as a speaker at conferences led by the Royal College of Midwives and says they have trained more than '600 birth professionals'. In a speaker profile for an event at the RCM in Wales, it says the organisation 'has worked with organisations such as NHS England, Birthrights, Make Birth Better, The Positive Birth Company, NCT as well as universities, collectives and health trusts across the UK and Ireland'. Those who have attended the courses are invited to join a 'closed' Facebook group of '500+ like-minded professionals' where they can 'build valuable networks and enhance their understanding of LGBTQ+ competency'. The nurse, who has faced investigation and disciplinary action after saying that the course did not align with her Christian views, questioned whether the content of the courses aligned with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman. She said: 'Student midwives are being taught and influenced to implement this ideology once they begin working on the NHS front line, which cannot be right, especially following the clarity of the Supreme Court ruling. 'I believe there are serious patient safety implications that warrant investigation. I am deeply concerned that this teaching on pregnancy attempts to downplay and discredit well-established clinical risks, potentially endangering the wellbeing of pregnant women, especially younger mothers. 'The activist network at the heart of this club must be open and transparent and no longer allowed to undermine the law, biological reality and basic standards in NHS services.' Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: 'The Supreme Court's ruling in the For Women Scotland case has made it clear that biological sex matters in law. 'These workshops risk undermining evidence-based maternity care and compromise the privacy, dignity and safety of both patients and staff. The NHS has a duty to uphold the law and to protect women, not to promote contested and harmful ideologies under the guise of inclusion. 'An immediate review of these programmes must be accelerated, and NHS leadership must ensure that all training and care provision is urgently grounded in biological reality and integrity.' An NHS spokesman said: 'NHS training should always be produced in line with the best clinical evidence.'
