Concerns over staffing levels in midwifery teams across Birmingham hospitals

Staff vacancies and sickness have put 'enormous pressure' on community midwifery staffing in city

Concerns have been raised about the number of senior staff vacancies in midwifery teams across Birmingham hospitals. Members of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust board were told how there continues to be 'enormous pressure' on community midwifery staffing.

A report to Thursday's (September 26) meeting said, in July, community midwifery was at 44 per cent unavailability due to vacancies, sickness and maternity leave. It also said there was a shortfall of six obstetricians although funding had been approved for one permanent and one 12-month fixed term replacements, with business cases being progressed for the remaining four.

Board members were told there is a particular issues in filling senior midwifery posts with one of the reasons given as people being reluctant to move up to a higher wage band role as it would mean an actual pay cut when they lose weekend or unsociable pay. Bosses said an action plan is in place to tackle the issues while a rolling recruitment drive is ongoing.

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Carla Jones-Charles, director of midwifery, said: "We continue to be under enormous pressure in terms of community midwifery staffing - it is on our risk register as a red alert. While we have mitigation in place, it continues to be a source of concern.

"We also have some gaps in the senior midwifery team just because people have relocated to other parts of the country. That has created some gaps which we are struggling to recruit to but we are working on those."

When asked if this was an opportunity to promote existing staff into the more senior roles, she added: "We are looking at talent management. Community midwifery is a hot spot across the Midlands - City and Sandwell have had it on their risk register and been in crisis quite a lot.

"We have done specialist recruitment and there actually is community event on Saturday specifically on community midwifery so we're hoping to do some work on that. One of the biggest challenges is for many Band 7 to move up to a Band 8 role they actually take a real drop in pay because they lose all their unsociable hours and weekends.

"It is really challenging to circumvent the agenda for change to move somebody up the band. I have a member of staff like that who is struggling. To justify it, moving them up the middle of that band has been a struggle internally."

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