Prime minister under fire for ‘broken promise’

The issue was brought up in Prime Minister’s Questions this week, when Rosie Cooper MP grilled Cameron on the issue.

She said: ‘Before the general election, you told midwives that you would make their lives easier and that you would recruit 3000 more midwives.

‘Since the general election, nurses and midwives have been downbanded, working harder for less, and midwives in training have been reduced by 3% a year.

‘Were the British people wrong to take you at your word?’

In reply, the prime minister said: ‘Compared with the election there are over 620 more midwives working in the NHS and there are record numbers in training.’

He continued: ‘There are more midwives, there are more in training. I'm afraid her figures are wrong.’

Cathy Warwick, RCM chief executive, has now spoken out against Cameron, and said that his promise should be honoured.

‘Once David Cameron was safely inside Number Ten, the pledge was dropped,’ she said. ‘The excuse was that the number of births was no longer rising.

‘This is bizarre in the extreme given that in 2010, the latest year for which we have figures, the number of births in England was actually at its highest level for 40 years.’
 
She continued: ‘When challenged at Prime Minister’s Questions, he brushed aside any suggestion that his pre-election pledge should be honoured, saying there are 620 more midwives.

‘There are more midwives, but there are also many, many more babies being born and midwife numbers are not keeping pace.

‘While it is true that the government has maintained student midwife numbers for two years, newly-qualified midwives are not getting jobs because of trust cutbacks.’

The news comes after an RCM survey, conducted in October last year, found almost a third of newly-qualified midwives had not been able to find a job, despite there being a shortage of nearly 5000 midwives in the UK.

Out of the midwives who had managed to find a job, only half were offered a permanent, full-time position, the results also showed.
 
Cathy concluded: ‘For too long maternity services have been denied the resources they desperately need. England is in the midst of a baby boom.

‘David Cameron should reinstate his personal pledge for 3000 more NHS midwives and crack on with the job of delivering them.’