Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 29 March 2022
It is a pleasure to follow Stephanie Callaghan, particularly given that she highlighted families of different shapes and sizes. To her list, I add mothers from refugee and migrant families, who have particular needs that are yet to be met in Scotland. I urge the Government to look at that issue.
I, too, welcome the recommendations contained in the committee’s report. They are timely and important and we must see their roll-out accelerated.
The recruitment crisis in the NHS, which is often talked about in Parliament, often overshadows the great work done by individual NHS staff—not just medical staff but staff across the board. The work that is done in perinatal mental health by the many people surrounding the nurses and midwives is so important.
However, it is important that we address the question of recruitment. We have heard about the staff shortages and the vacancies that exist. The effect of those goes to the heart of one of the committee’s recommendations on the perinatal mental health training that midwives and those who support them require. One challenge is that, although midwives can be rostered to go on that important training, vacancies and absences mean that crucial clinical care would not be given if they were to do so. What goes in those circumstances? Their lifelong training. That is unfortunate but quite right, given that they are required to stay on the ward to ensure that the women on it are dealt with and handled safely.
One of the things that we need to look at is the support surrounding our NHS staff to ensure that such training can happen. It is all very well having the funding to provide the training and the places where such training can take place, but if staff cannot attend, we have lost an opportunity.
I thank the Royal College of Midwives for the briefing that it has provided to me and others in the chamber. On training, it says:
“We ... echo the concern acknowledged by the Committee that education and training is too often failing to take place because of staff shortages, with the immediate demands of clinical care on short-staffed units understandably prioritised.”
One midwife commented:
“Due to shortness of staff, I am unable to give good or even adequate care to pregnant ladies and mums and babies. … Staff dread coming to work as it’s an accident waiting to happen, we scrape through by the skin on our teeth.”
That is a very sad quote to share, but those are the same people who will go on to make sure that all the ladies under their care are safe and looked after. I do not in any way want to spread concern among people who have to use our midwifery services, but there is a strain and a stress within the profession and it is for the Government to look to rectify that.
In the short time that I have left, I want to ask the minister about the 2019 report that has been referenced. There were 28 recommendations in that report. Will the Government publish information on how many of those recommendations it has met and, more important, when the remaining ones are likely to be met?
With my final few seconds, I once again extend my thanks to the people who work in the midwifery service. I know from personal experience at the birth of one of my children about the stress and strain that they face. They do an admirable—no, a brilliant—job.
15:21