A student midwife who fears she will be unable to get a job after completing 2,300 hours of unpaid placement work in the NHS is calling for guaranteed posts for newly qualified midwives who otherwise will be forced to abandon the profession before their careers begin.
Aimee Peach, 43, is due to complete her training next summer, but says the promise of a job at the end of her three-year degree course has “collapsed”, despite severe shortages of midwives across the country.
“It is a waste of talent, training and public money, and the consequences will be felt by families across the country,” she said.
“There are so many of us that just want to work as midwives after three years of gruelling training, but we’re having to face the fact that, after all this, there may be only a handful of jobs available.”
Last month, a survey by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) found that eight out of 10 student midwives due to qualify this year were not confident of finding a job after graduating despite understaffing in maternity care. Some services have had to close temporarily due to unsafe levels of staffing. According to the RCM, funding cuts and recruitment freezes have tied the hands of midwifery managers who are desperate to hire staff.
Fiona Gibb, the RCM’s director of midwifery, said: “Report after report cites understaffing as a factor in the delivery of safe care, and midwives consistently share with us that there are too few of them to deliver the best care they know they can.
“Despite this, midwifery graduates face uncertainty, with too few vacancies for them to begin work upon qualification … The new midwives who are now ready are finding that the jobs simply aren’t there.”
Peach, from Bridgwater, Somerset, has combined academic study with on-the-job training and caring for her three children since beginning her midwifery degree. Student midwives must complete 2,300 hours of work placements and deliver 40 babies to qualify.
She had hoped the qualification would lead to a higher household income and good career prospects as well as pursuing her commitment to improving women’s experience of pregnancy and birth.
“It’s been a pretty hard couple of years, both physically and mentally, but I had a goal in sight. No one chooses midwifery to have a comfortable job – you have to have a passion for it,” she said.
That passion helped her through unpaid 12-hour shifts, sometimes at night. On occasion she has slept in the back of her car on her placement more than 80 miles from her home. “After all this, we now face the scary prospect that we might not get jobs.”
Earlier this month, Peach wrote to her MP, Ashley Fox, to draw his attention to the problem. “A recent national search for band 5 [newly qualified] midwifery roles revealed just four vacancies across England despite an estimated national shortage of over 2,500 midwives,” she wrote.
“I have witnessed first-hand the consequences of understaffing and burnout in maternity services, yet thousands of qualified professionals are unable to secure employment. There is no shortage of qualified midwives, only a shortage of funded positions.”
Peach asked Fox to back a call for guaranteed NHS jobs for newly qualified midwives, increased funding for maternity services and for student debt to be cancelled for healthcare workers who complete five years of continuous NHS service.
Fox replied saying he would seek an opportunity to raise the matter in parliament.
Gibb said: “Having enough midwives, in the right places, with the right skills and training is fundamental to the safety improvements that are desperately needed across maternity services.
“We are calling on all four national UK governments to review their midwifery workforce planning approach and call a halt to the recruitment freezes that are preventing women and their families from receiving the care they need and deserve.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Student nurses and midwives like Aimee are our future workforce and it is unacceptable that they are unable to find roles.
“NHS England has set up a dedicated programme of work with employers, educators and trade unions to address this.
“We will revise the workforce plan later this year, to ensure the NHS has the right people in the right place, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need.”