South Warwickshire maternity service prioritising staff retention and well-being
The South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) Maternity Service is responsible for birthing around 3200 babies each year.
A Maternity Service in Warwickshire is hoping to attract more workers into the profession, through their recent improvements.
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) have retained their overall rating of "Good" in their recent Care Quality Commission's (CQC) inspection report, showcasing significant improvements in the quality of care within their maternity ward.
Associate Director of Midwifery at SWFT, Linda Ward, explained how they have really tried to prioritise staff wellbeing and retention.
She said: "We are absolutely delighted with the positive findings from the recent CQC inspection, which recognises the team’s hard work to improve the quality of care provided within our Maternity Services. This achievement is a testament to everybody in our exceptional Maternity Team.
"We have been really focusing on strengthening every aspect of safety in the Maternity Services by implementing robust processes and procedures. We've also increased our staffing across all areas of maternity, and we've actually been supported by the Trust to recruit into real specialist areas of midwifery."
The changes come as the sector faces increased pressure and staff shortages.
According to the Royal College of Midwives, some NHS staff spoke of a widespread and growing sense of fear of mistakes, incidents, or other failures due to the chronic levels of understaffing.
This reflects official statistics showing that England was down over 500 midwives in 2022, on top of a longstanding shortage of over 2000 midwives.
Linda Ward hopes the improvement to the SWFT Maternity Service will inspire more people to join the profession.
She said: "Maternity at the moment is under a lot of scrutiny. I think we are putting people off becoming midwives and actually we want to do the exact opposite. So, having a really good rating like this should hopefully inspire people to become a midwife, because we really do need people to keep training, to look at our future workforce.
"Why would people want to work in such a difficult environment? But actually, what you don't hear all the time is how wonderful it is to work in Maternity Services and the great value that you get of making a difference every day."
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