Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of maternity staff leaving NHS employment on services.

The Department works with NHS England on a regular basis to review the numbers of staff working in National Health Service maternity services, and to identify any issues which could potentially impact services.

Growing, retaining, and supporting the maternity workforce to ensure that there are staff with the capacity and the right skills to deliver safe, personalised, and equitable care for women and babies is a key theme of NHS England’s Three Year Delivery Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Services. NHS England is also delivering a nursing and midwifery retention programme, supporting organisations in assessing themselves against a bundle of interventions aligned to the NHS People Promise, and to develop high-quality local retention improvement plans.