Money and Management
Iused to be a midwife but I left on health grounds due to stress six years ago,” says Amanda Mallett. “I trained to make a difference in helping women during what can be a frightening and stressful time, but as a qualified midwife I didn’t feel as though I was able to fulfil this expectation. I found the health service to be stretched far too thinly with everyone only able to do the bare minimum and consequently things would get overlooked, which ultimately compromised patient care. Job satisfaction was really low.
“The solution to this is not only increased funding to provide more midwives to cope with an ever-increasing demand, but also good management. Unfortunately, the management staff aren’t necessarily trained managers, but health professionals who have worked their way up to those positions.
“Some are very good at the managerial role, but others are more experienced clinicians who don’t have the right management skills. You do need both. The lack of support for newly qualified midwives doesn’t help to ease the stress which is put upon the NHS. Why spend money training people, only to let them go at the first hurdle, because they can’t support staff properly?
“I regularly meet up with my midwifery friends who inform me that in the years since I left the NHS, things have become even harder. NHS staff are truly amazing and it is such a terrible shame that these constraints mean that nobody is able to do the job as well as they would like to do.”