Jude, Birmingham Socialist Party
Catastrophic events at maternity units in England have exposed the shocking number of maternal and neonatal deaths that should and could have been prevented.
In response to these deadly failings, Starmer’s Labour government has commissioned yet another inquiry to discover what contributed to the tragic sad deaths of mothers and babies.
I guarantee the report will identify failures and will include that the recommended 1:1 ratio of midwives to labouring women is not being achieved. Many historical enquiries and research have shown that 1:1 midwifery care in labour reduces poor outcomes.
Whilst these deadly failings are still fresh in everyone’s mind, the appalling truth is that soon-to-be-qualified midwives and nurses are unable to find positions in the NHS. They are unemployed!
Those of us who have undertaken nurse or midwife training are acutely aware that the first six months after qualifying are massively important to your future practice. This is much easier if it is in the facility in which you trained and are familiar. We have the highly trained staff but refuse to employ them.
The inquiry currently being commissioned will lay bare the lack of training and shortage of staff as a causative factor. I would wage a bet these recommendations will be forgotten and not acted upon. The government will not want to give extra funding to implement the improvement. There is a perpetual cycle of failings then inquiries then not implementing their findings.
To add insult to injury, there are thousands of doctors who cannot access training posts in their chosen area. For those wanting to become GPs, trainee places have all been drastically cut. Money awarded to general surgeries has to be ring-fenced to employ nurses or other allied professionals but not doctors.
Many doctors are leaving in droves for Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc. Those same doctors have studied at UK medical schools for at least five years and worked in resident (formally junior) doctor roles for at least two years, only to find they cannot continue in their chosen field or any other clinical area. Historically, psychiatric trainee positions have always been undersubscribed but not in 2025, they too are now oversubscribed.
More than 33,000 doctors are chasing less than 13,000 available posts. This is horrendous for the present day, but what about the future?
Has health secretary Wes Streeting considered the long-term consequences of his actions? A workforce plan has been promised but as yet has not materialised.
The health secretary recently published his ten-year plan for the NHS which involves moving care from hospital to the community. My extensive experience of managing a community midwifery service for a large county gives me some insight into ‘hospital at home’. This system requires more staff and will cost a lot to roll out. But it will also require well-trained experienced staff. Where will these professionals come from?
But don’t worry, Wes’s ten-year plan will give us all an improved NHS app and AI will sort everything!
There are currently 121,000 full-time vacant positions in the NHS. I have endured the savings that departments in the NHS have had to make, it’s common practice to keep vacant posts empty. It’s highly likely this is what’s happening while nurses and midwives are unable to secure a position to consolidate their training. The effect on staff morale is massive. Everyone is aware that employing these nurses, doctors and midwives would really make a difference.
The current government has imposed massive ‘savings’ on every trust in the country. This is continuing the brutal Tory austerity on the NHS and expands the use of private companies within the health service.
No doubt any future failings will be wrongly attributed to doctors’, nurses’ and other NHS staff’s industrial action, and not the thousands of unfilled vacancies within the NHS.
