Staff shortage improves at Nottingham maternity units – but 56 posts still unfilled

The trust, which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) and City Hospital, is rated ‘requires improvement’ for its maternity services.

Experienced midwife Donna Ockenden is also conducting a review into maternity failures at the trust.

At the trust’s board meeting on January 11, Becky Gray, head of midwifery for quality risk and safety said there is still a shortage in midwifery and obstetrics.

Currently, there is a 12.9 per cent vacancy rate for full-time roles within maternity services across QMC and City Hospital, meaning just over one in 10 posts are unfilled.

This marks a significant improvement on the previous year’s vacancy rate of 25.8 per cent, or around 123 full-time vacancies, and about one in four posts.

The hospitals trust says measures are in place to recruit more staff, including offering more support and development to student midwives, recruiting internationally and making some flexible contracts permanent.

Board papers published ahead of the meeting show the percentage of shifts at both hospitals which met ‘green acuity’ levels.

Green acuity is when the number of midwives needed at one time matches the number of women in labour and their degree of dependency.

Acuity levels are monitored regularly and can change throughout a shift.

The board papers state that in November 2023, the percentage of shifts where staffing met ‘green acuity’ at City Hospital was 63 per cent and at QMC was 59 per cent.

NUH says the ‘fill rates’ on its maternity shifts are more than 80 per cent on average each month.

Ms Gray said: “We do have the challenge that there is a lot about maternity services in the press which doesn’t necessarily encourage people to look at it as a career.

“We do need to change that narrative.

“We’ve had rolling adverts out for a number of years and we have changed our approach to now recruit in cohorts which has been really successful, so people have a peer group.

“We will continue to do that so we do support them as best we can.

“This is not just about shortages of midwives, we have to include obstetrics in that.

“Obstetrics is equally challenged, if not more.”