Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-04-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with (a) the Nursing and Midwifery Council, (b) the Royal College of Midwives, (c) the Royal College of Nursing and (d) Independent Midwives UK on changes to midwifery regulation.

Ben Gummer

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and Independent Midwives UK (IMUK) have all been involved in discussions concerning the proposed changes to midwifery regulation.

On 22 January 2016 the Department, on behalf of the four United Kingdom Chief Nursing Officers and their external partners, published plans for a new non-statutory system of midwifery supervision that will meet the need for clinical supervision of midwives in clinical practice, and peer review for those not in clinical practice. The NMC, RCM and IMUK were consulted on and contributed to the published proposals.

The Royal College of Nursing has not been involved in the above discussions, as midwifery regulations do not affect nurses.