NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson recently calculated that England needs an extra 4,500 midwives.
According to information he submitted to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, 608,000 births in England in 1997 had risen to 671,000 by 2009, while the number of full-time midwives had only increased from around 18,000 to just over 20,000.
As mentioned in a previous post, David Cameron has already talked of a need to recruit around 3,000 midwives. However, research I did some time ago suggests that the midwifery shortage mainly affects the South East and Eastern counties of England.
Anecdotal evidence from Scotland suggests that there is a surfeit of midwives training North of the Border.
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