£97 million bill for midwife shortage

UK maternity units are turning to expensive temporary staffing arrangements such as overtime and agency staff to plug gaps in midwife rotas, union says.

Royal College of Midwives data showed the bill hit nearly £100 million in 2016, with services having to pay hourly fees twice as high as the normal rates.

The union said that was enough to cover the ‘national shortage’ of 3,500 staff.

The RCM compiled the figures using the Freedom of Information Act, receiving responses from 159 local maternity services, nearly 99 per cent of those asked.

Services were asked for their spending on three types of temporary staffing arrangements, including overtime, agency staff and the NHS bank, the health service’s in-house agency service.

The biggest area of spending by far was on the NHS bank, which accounted for two-thirds of the bill.

The RCM said the fact maternity services were turning to these arrangements on such a scale showed the service was ‘understaffed and under-resourced’.

It also highlighted the levels of pay required to get staff to fill the shifts - the average hourly spend on agency staff was £43.65, compared with £18.20 for a staff midwife with 10 years’ experience in England and Wales.

Jon Skewes, RCM director of policy, said: “The use of temporary midwives to staff permanent shortages is counterproductive and smacks of short-termism when there needs to be sensible and strategic long-term planning in midwifery and across the NHS.

"It is costing more in the long run to pay agency, bank and overtime than it would if services employed the right numbers of midwives in the first place.”