Blue days for the NHS

Midwives magazine: Issue 7 :: 2011

Politically it’s a tough time for midwifery, with staff shortages and controversial health reforms looming large on the horizon. Rob Dabrowski asks Andy Burnham about the burning issues.

There were over 15,000 signatures on the RCM’s e-petition for 5000 more midwives at the time of writing this article. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham’s name was not among them. He’s the man in charge of holding the government to account on health issues, but he had not heard of the petition.

‘I haven’t signed it yet, but I will look at it,’ he promises Midwives in an interview at his office in parliament. ‘I think [RCM chief executive Cathy Warwick] is right to raise the issue and she put pressure on me when I was health secretary. There’s a real shortage of midwives, particularly in London, and I’ve had very constructive talks with Cathy about it.’ So, will he be adding his name to the growing list after the interview? He says he will sign it if he can, and if it is relevant.

The 41-year-old MP has more reason than most politicians to understand the impact that midwives can have. This isn’t just due to his position as shadow health secretary, but also because his wife, Marie-France van Heel, had medically required caesarean sections for all three of their children. ‘We are very well acquainted with the incredible work midwives do and will be forever grateful to the wonderful staff who helped us through those difficult hours,’ he says.

Their first child, Jimmy, now 11 years old, was born by emergency caesarean at King’s College Hospital, London. Their next two children Rose, nine, and Anne-Marie, six, were also born by caesarean. All three were delivered while Tony Blair’s Labour government was running the health service and images of a fresh-faced new prime minister, celebrating to the sound of Things can only get better by D:Ream, was still fresh in the nation’s memory.

‘It’s a convenient thing for a Labour politician to say,’ says Mr Burnham smiling. ‘But we saw maternity services getting better with each child that was born. As the decade wore on we saw an improvement in one-to-one provision, cleaner environments and an all-round more orderlyand personal experience. It was clear that maternity services
had improved.’

With the Tory-led coalition government in power, and contentious health reforms slowly slogging their way through the House of Lords, does Mr Burnham think he would see an even further improved maternity service if he were to have a fourth child now? ‘It remains to be seen,’ he says. ‘Across the NHS there are the warning signs that it is beginning to slip backwards. In the long-term, I’m worried about where the NHS is going.

‘I believe the government has been responsible for a fundamental breach of trust in the health service,’ he continues. ‘Andrew Lansley and David Cameron have not delivered on promises that they made for more midwives.’

Discussing the reforms, it’s easy for politicians to toss around clichéd terms, such as ‘postcode lottery’ – which Mr Burnham does. But he backs the political rhetoric (and the occasional hackneyed phrase) with solid, informed ideas about how the NHS and maternity care can be improved.

‘I don’t think there’s an easy answer when it comes to changing the NHS,’ he admits. ‘It is a difficult thing, but the NHS won’t survive if the nettles aren’t grasped. This is a profession that requires investment and support. I want to be sure that the backup of the highest quality is there. I believe we need homebirths and midwife-led units backed up by emergency care of the highest possible standard.

‘People like to talk about reform but, 99 times out of 100, they are talking about organisational reform. The real reform is service reform; taking services out of the hospitals and into the community.’ He adds that the midwifery service needs ‘more specialisation’ and that he believes services should be delivered closer to patients’ homes and ‘in patients’ homes, where technology allows’. These are all issues that the MP is due to discuss in his speech at the RCM annual conference in Brighton.

‘I do enjoy speaking at conferences and it’s not the first time I’ve spoken at an RCM conference,’ he says. ‘The midwives were certainly challenging when I spoke in Manchester at the RCM annual conference in 2009, and there were rightly questions being asked about the midwife workforce. At the time, I don’t think [the Labour government] had focused enough on the long-term challenges and the good thing is that going to conferences does make one really focus on the issues.’

So, after the Brighton conference this month, Mr Burnham should be fully aware of the impact of the desperate shortage of midwives and the problems posed by ongoing job cuts and freezes, in the midst of rapidly increasing birth rates. Hopefully, after speaking to those working tirelessly on the front line of health care, his name will be among those on Cathy Warwick’s government petition. With any luck, it will be alongside many, many more.