Midwifery

The #Saynotobullyinginmidwifery Facebook group was set up in April 2017 in order to support midwives and maternity workers who found themselves the victims of bullying behaviour. It was very apparent that the systems that had been put in place to protect the employee were not working and in many cases worked against the employee, who after raising concerns about culture, practices and safety, often became a bigger target by systems who either ignored the concerns, or even worse, supported the perpetrators of poor and unsafe culture, in turn making the situation worse and the employee members ended up resigning or retiring early in order to get away from the behaviours. This was considered by the systems as “problem solved.”

In October 2021, the question “Why do Midwives leave? was asked within the group. The consequence of asking this question was a tsunami of accounts from midwives, student midwives, maternity support workers, lecturers, heads of midwifery and others. Accounts which repeatedly describe awful experiences which left the employees damaged and broken with lives and careers ruined, which impacted on their own families. As already described, they reported that they found that the systems that should have been in place to support them worked against them, Factors other than bullying also come into play, workload, short staffing, hierarchy, lack of safety, lack of compassion, racism, disregarding disabilities, poor training environment….. the list goes on.

In the numerous accounts this book/report, all areas of the system from CQC, CEO, HR, midwifery management, universities and the unions are described as being complicit, inadequate, disinterested + even corrupt. Work environments are described as unsafe, exit interviews were not performed, recorded or acted upon. Staff are not valued, they describe not having a safe working environment. All too often after speaking out whistle-blowers are demonised until they leave. Health and safety issues and truly evidence base practice ignored with no lessons learned. The mental anguish caused by these failures is very difficult to read.

Several reports have been published which clearly illustrate the devastation of unsafe care. We know from report after report that poor culture is described in these reports impacts on the safety of care given We also know that maternity is extremely understaffed and midwives and maternity workers are leaving in droves.

Universities and training hospitals need to provide a safe supportive place in which students can learn, train, work and develop good quality and safe care with adequate and experienced mentorship. This is essential in order to retain and facilitate newly qualified midwives who are happy and supported and then in turn become experienced and happy staff, essential in what is an extremely responsible role. Staffing levels and training need to be optimal to ensure the safety of women and babies is optimal.

This report will also show that despite leaving the roles that they loved, many midwifery and maternity staff members remain incredibly passionate about midwifery, maternity, mothers, babies, families and their colleagues and want the system to do better and be safer for all concerned. Many of the accounts in this book/report are from midwives who have reluctantly left the profession, many others are contemplating leaving.

We haven’t included solutions in the report/book because we recognise there are no easy solutions. The damage cannot be instantly be repaired over night. Any solution needs an urgent multi-faceted approach where the focus is on doing and not just talking. These changes involve listening and speaking to those on the front line and including experienced health and wellbeing teams and systems for staff. The safety of mothers, babies, families, midwives and maternity staff depends on it.

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