Midwifery leader attacks Government on maternity care

Professor Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said midwives were coping with an increasing number of births and more complex cases and yet had dwindling resources.

She attacked the Government’s overhaul of the health service, saying “several billion pounds will have been wasted on a yet another pointless reorganisation of the NHS”.

Speaking at the RCM’s annual conference in Brighton yesterday Prof Warwick said some birthing centres were being threatened with closure while midwives also faced having their jobs downgraded. Midwives were also dealing with cuts to postnatal visits and cases of women discharged from hospital before they are ready.

“When it comes to staffing, the rhetoric is that there are more midwives than ever before. The reality in England is that the midwifery shortage is becoming a crisis,” she added.

On funding, she said the rhetoric was that the NHS budget had been maintained and there were no cuts to frontline services. Prof Warwick said the Government stressed the importance of remembering human costs in healthcare.

“My challenge to the Government is therefore how to take £20bn out of the healthcare system without creating a negative human cost for the women who rely on the NHS for their care?”

Health Minister Anne Milton said it was not true modernising the NHS would cost several billion pounds, that £20bn was being taken out or that maternity spending was being cut.