The ARM welcomes the recent announcement of a national investigation into maternity and neonatal services and publication of the 10 Year Health Plan for England.
We appreciate that Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has made such a strong personal commitment to improving maternity services and will chair a taskforce expected to report in December. He has set an ambitious target to ‘ensure no parent or baby is ever let down again’ which clearly indicated that, for him as for ARM members, MATERNITY MATTERS! He has taken the time to personally meet with bereaved and harmed families, and made them central to his investigation. We believe that listening to families’ experiences is an important basis for evaluation and learning for all maternity services.
The taskforce will be made up of a panel of esteemed experts and bereaved families. We believe ARM to be esteemed experts in maternity care, who have long campaigned for improvements to maternity services and person-centred care; we ask that we be invited to contribute to the taskforce. We also ask that the investigation talks to families who have had positive experiences of birth, as well as those who have experienced loss or harm.
We share the concerns of many other commentators (see Roy Lilley’s podcast ‘All you need to know’) who have questioned the need for yet another investigation, when the recommendations of previous investigations have still not been implemented. We note that the maternity services review of 2022-2024 recognised the pressures on staffing and the failures to recruit and retain midwives, which have impacted care and negatively impacted staff morale. We hope that the proposed review will continue to address these issues. However, we know that many newly qualified midwives have not been recruited in the last six months because of a lack of available posts. We question the logic of this given the significant investment in educating midwives and the obvious need for them in the clinical setting.
We ask that the taskforce acknowledges and values the role of midwives in providing safe and compassionate care for all women, to support them to achieve the birth they want – and understands that this includes skilled support for physiological birth, as well as the ability to provide ongoing assessment throughout pregnancy and birth and offer appropriate and timely medical intervention when this is indicated, and sometimes sensitive and responsive care together with candour and transparency, when things sadly go wrong. In particular, we ask that the taskforce is careful to avoid any unfounded allegations that midwifery care can be based on a dangerous ideology, as has occurred previously. We welcome the Secretary of State’s assurance that the investigation will be evidence based and we urge him to ensure the recommendations are also evidence based.
In the 10 Year Health Plan for England we particularly welcome the repeated use of the word ‘radical’. Sometimes ARM has been fearful that the word ‘radical’ in our name might put some people off, so we are pleased that the need for ‘radical’ change has been embraced by both Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer. We expect the government to welcome input from ‘radical’ organisations to help implement the ’radical’ change they want.
Two of the 3 ‘radical shifts’ of the 10 year plan which closely align with ARM goals:
The radical shift from treatment to prevention
The report mainly focuses on earlier diagnosis & treatment (with advances in technology) and support for people to make healthier life-style choices to address problems like smoking, obesity and alcohol.
We ask that the strategy for prevention acknowledges the importance of maternity care to ensure all babies have the best start in life, from conception to 2 years of age (the first 1,000 days) which is an opportunity to build the strongest foundation for lifelong physical, mental and social health of the whole population born in the UK, for the rest of their lives. Investment in maternity and early years services will prevent ill health.
The ARM asks that the government ensure the implementation of continuity of midwifery carer for all – to promote health and wellbeing and reduce adverse outcomes and the need for medical treatment. The value to the mother and her unborn baby of knowing her midwife throughout her childbearing journey is well documented. It facilitates a relationship that is based on compassion and in doing so promotes responsive and safe care.
We ask that the government commit to a national infant feeding strategy with a national coordinator, in recognition of the fact that breastfeeding can reduce the incidence of lifelong physical and mental health in both mothers and babies.
The radical shift from hospital to home
The ARM asks the government to ensure safe and reliable access to homebirth and freestanding birth centres for all who want those services, and to centre maternity services in the new Neighbourhood Health Service.
We welcome the promised overhaul of education and training curricula for NHS staff and expect midwifery training to have an emphasis on ‘soft skills’ like listening, clinical decision making and facilitating person-centred, personalised care as well as enhancing skills to better use technology and AI.
The ARM pamphlet Our Proposals for Change: A New Era for Maternity Care gives an overview of the important changes we would like to see, all of which align with the aims of the government to achieve safer and more compassionate care, increasingly provided in the community, with the overall aim of preventing ill health.
0 Comments