Your wellbeing, your profession, your career, your clinical practice, your future services all addressed at the London Maternity and Midwifery Festival, 11th Feb, Royal National Hotel, near Euston, London. Our editorial director takes you through what you can see and hear.
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Gill Walton, the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Midwives leads a stellar line up of maternity and midwifery speakers at the London Festival on 11th Feb..
Live with an exhibition in Euston London with an online livestream on the MMF website and on demand for everyone else to catch up, its free to attend and its not too late to book.
Can we make 2025 a turning point for Maternity Services in the UK and relieve midwives under pressure? Can the service break the cycle of stress, staff shortages, increasing birth trauma for mothers and staff, and runaway rates of Caesarean section? Has the response to previous inquiries on stillbirth and maternal deaths had unintended consequences, leading to defensive practice, reflected in the latest MBRRACE report showing a stalling in progress and a slight increase in stillbirths and maternal deaths.
With the publication of the Renfrew Report I think there is a chance and a solution to get behind.
The shock of realising that C Section rates are heading for an average of 50% and that many units are reported to have already reached that number should be a moment of pause for ministers planning the 10 year NHS plan.
We thought there was some good news that the 5 times risk of death in childbirth for black women was reduced to 3 times, but a very annoyed sounding Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, speaking at a conference at the weekend reported that the apparent reduction was a statistical illusion caused by more white women dying.
Priti Patel, Head of Division – Midwifery & NMC Lead Midwife for Education, London South Bank University and Wendy Olayiwola, National Maternity Lead for Equality, NHS England will be showcasing the Elevation work they are doing to support getting more black and brown midwives into leadership roles for which they are qualified.
The challenge of the safety agenda revealed in the various inquiries into Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford and East Kent is that it looks back not forward, how to plug the gaps in the current practice without looking forward to how the maternity services could be reorganised to prevent and meet adequately safety challenges in childbirth that are well known with well established solutions. Literally how can we make births better as government policy current aspires to do.
Huge interest is growing around the Renfrew Report on maternity safety in northern Ireland, a safety report that looks at a whole system solution and has been enthusiastically reported in NI Ireland but is equally applicable across the UK – the authors having helpfully supplied all the comparative evidence and stats from across the 4 nations of the UK. Nikki Wilson, CEO of Make Birth Better will be addressing the issue.
The NMC will be there to answer your questions and UK Health Security Agency speaker Helen Eley will be addressing the growing public issue around immunisation in pregnancy.
Education, on student retention and the tricky issues of placement will be covered by Nicky Clarke the LME at Hull and Jo Killingley, LME at Middlesex will be looking at the issues of moving from midwifery education to clinical practice, with testimonies from focus groups, always fascinating.
Plus a range of clinical issues around induction of labour, VBAC Pregnancy Associated Osteoporosis, Haemoglobinopathies and social issues in the workplace on bullying, Jewish cultural safety in maternity care, impact of social medial on fear of birth and parenting and the workplace.
A big challenge in 2025 will be to explain to ministers and policy makers in the treasury why maternity services are under such pressure when the birth rate is falling by over 100,000 a year from its peak and midwifery numbers have only risen by 7% from 2010 when other parts of the workforce have risen by 30%+ over the same period. Ireland is facing the same questions. Surely falling birth rates mean we need less midwives they ask? The current crisis in the service demonstrates that is not that simple a case, but the message has not yet reached the treasury bean counters.So we need to hear more explanation about rising inductions, rising c sections, more specialist midwifery services and roles, more post-natal work, and more admin and management absorbs and often overwhelms maternity services.
A day at the London Festival or watching online counts towards you revalidation and your education.
There is a great exhibition and lots of ideas to take back about midwifery, about your career plans and perhaps a bit of hope that things can get better.
Neil Stewart
Editorial Director
28th July 2025