London will be alive to the sound of midwives and maternity support workers (MSW) tomorrow as members of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) join thousands of other workers in a mass TUC rally in London.
Hundreds of midwives and MSWs will be joining the TUC’s call for better pay, and more support for working people as prices rise and the cost-of-living rockets, biting hard into the finances of workers and their families.
The RCM will also be highlighting the longstanding and chronic midwife staffing shortages in the NHS. England is 2000 midwives short of the numbers needed, and this is worsening every month.
Gill Walton, Chief Executive of the RCM will be one of the keynote speakers at the rally. She will be driving home the message about the impact that staffing shortages, under investment and pay rapidly falling behind the real cost of living is having on maternity services and its staff.
Suzanne Tyler, Executive Director, Trade Union at the RCM and a member of the TUC General Council, said: “We have got to make the Government listen to the impact their policies and intransigence are having on our members, on other working people across this country, and on the services they provide. Maternity services are in crisis with rising demands and without the staffing and resources to meet them. Its staff are fragile, overwhelmed and deeply demoralised and many are choosing to leave the NHS because they cannot deliver the safe and high-quality care they want to.
“Just yesterday we had a letter from a midwife, an RCM steward, highlighting the terrible situation in her maternity services, and across her region, which she described as ‘dire and a ‘ticking time bomb’. Hers was one desperate voice, but we know that there are thousands and thousands more across the country feeling the same. The Government must listen to them because their selfless dedication to keep services safe cannot be sustained. We must see this government step up significantly its investment in maternity services, in its staff, and give them the inflation busting pay rise they need and deserve. This is why we are joining the TUC rally tomorrow to demand better for maternity services, for midwives, for MSWs, and for all workers.”
