Midwifery Continuity of Carer update
Dame Ruth May, Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent and Dr Matthew Jolly announced in September 2022 there will no longer be a target date for maternity services to provide Midwifery Continuity of Carer (McoC) for all women and trans men. Instead trusts are being supported to develop plans which work in their area.
Currently there are nine MCoC teams operating in the North East. There are none in North Cumbria or South Tyne and Sunderland. County Durham and Darlington have reduced their MCoC teams from seven to two. This is due to workforce pressures and now the LMNS is supporting trusts to refocus and look at ways we can understand and address this.
The LMNS NENC Workforce Steering Group has evolved from the MCoC Steering Group and has refreshed its terms of reference and is now working on:
- Engaging the with stakeholders including Recruitment and Retention Lead Midwives, Professional Midwifery Advocates, Obstetric representatives, CoC Leads, rotational MVP representation, LMNS programme staff and clinical leads
- Supporting trusts to put the building blocks in place to implement and sustain MCoC with a particular focus on safe staffing, skill mix and training
- Developing an LMNS workforce plan including age profiling, growing, sustaining, training and having the right people in the right place, developing five year forecasting
- Linking with the wider NENC ICS including ICS Workforce Supply Group
The LMNS is funding seven of our trusts with non-recurrent funding of up to £77K each to help support their local workforce development plans.
County Durham and Darlington, Gateshead and Northumberland trusts were successful in bidding for additional funds from NHS England to provide MCoC for people living in the most deprived 10 per cent neighbourhoods. The work will be evaluated nationally and enables the trusts to provide a dedicated maternity support worker.