Stress a serious problem for Midwives

Nearly half of midwives in England suffered work-related stress in the previous 12 months, according to the latest NHS Staff Survey.  The survey of nearly 300,000 shows a snapshot of staff views in 2015 and has just been published by NHS England.  It finds that stress is a problem for many of the 5268 midwives who responded to the question, with 46% saying they had suffered in the past year. This compares to 36% of health visitors and 33% of paramedics.

Other key findings were that:

69% of midwives had felt pressure in the last three months to attend work when they were feeling unwell.

43% had witnessed potentially harmful errors, near misses or incidents in the last month alone.

32% of midwives had experienced bullying, abuse or harassment from NHS staff in the previous 12 months. (Much of this is unreported with only 37% saying that they reported the most recent experience.)

However, there was some good news too:

The overall engagement score (which measures staff’s perceived ability to contribute to improvements at work; their willingness to recommend the organisation as a place to work or receive treatment, and the extent to which they feel motivated and engaged with their work) has increased since 2011.

58% of all NHS staff who responded to the survey reported that they often or always look forward to going to work and 74% of staff feeling enthusiastic about their job.

RCM director for policy, employment relations and communications Jon Skewes said: “These latest NHS staff survey results are shocking but not surprising, midwives day in, day out face enormous pressure due to understaffing and an increased birth rate…and to have almost 4000 midwives suffering work-related stress is deeply concerning. In June this year the RCM will launch a health, safety and wellbeing campaign, which we hope will provide greater advice and better support to midwives and maternity staff on how best to cope with the daily pressures they face, such as work-related stress. The campaign also aims to raise awareness among employers of the long-term value in promoting well being among maternity staff.”

 
For more on this story see the RCM article here