Maternity Services: Staff
(asked on 30th November 2022) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many maternity support were working in the NHS, in each of the past five years.
The following table shows the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) maternity support staff working in National Health Service (NHS) hospital trusts and commissioning bodies in England over the past five years.
| August 2018 | August 2019 | August 2020 | August 2021 | August 2022 |
Maternity Support Staff - FTE | 7,270 | 7,439 | 8,098 | 7,485 | 7,545 |
Source: NHS Digital Workforce Statistics
Maternity support staff have been defined as all support staff that work in a ‘maternity services’ and ‘neonatal nursing’ care setting. This includes nursing associates, nursery nurses, nursing assistants/auxiliaries, healthcare assistants and support workers.
NHS England have provided funding to maternity services to support the recruitment of Maternity Support Workers (MSW) and to offer enhanced education support to align them with the Health Education England MSW competency, education, and career development framework.
To increase the maternity workforce, from 2022, an additional £127 million is being invested by NHS England which will go towards the maternity NHS workforce and improving neonatal care. This is on top of the £95 million invested in 2021, to fund the establishment of posts for 1,200 more midwives and 100 more consultant obstetricians.