Lib Dems call for one-to-one midwife care during childbirth
Sir Ed Davey announced at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton that, should his party form government, it would allocate an additional £600 million each year to maternity services. The pledge follows a Lib Dem analysis of NHS data showing record‑high levels of serious childbirth injuries in England, including a rise to three per 100 women experiencing severe tearing that requires emergency surgery and more than 8,000 cases of postpartum haemorrhage with blood loss exceeding 1.5 litres since the start of the year—double the figure for the same period in 2021. Davey described these trends as a “devastating indictment of our NHS maternity services” and called for one‑to‑one midwife care for every woman in labour, a consultant obstetrician on every labour ward at all times, and the recruitment of 300 extra consultant midwives.
The Lib Dem platform highlights that the surge in complications is linked to chronic staff shortages and overstretched maternity teams, with a Care Quality Commission survey indicating that one in ten women—about 54 000—were left alone during the later stages of labour last year. The party points to a 29 % increase over five years in third‑ or fourth‑degree vaginal tears and a peak in major haemorrhage rates between April and June, when 32.7 women per thousand required emergency treatment. Davey argued that the current £1.3 billion spent annually on negligence compensation for poor maternity outcomes should be redirected toward preventive staffing and training measures, asserting that “the best way…to make sure maternity units are safe” is to relieve the “massively overstretched” workforce.
The government is slated to release a new national maternity and neonatal action plan by year‑end, and the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed that a statutory Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner will be appointed, with the National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce chaired by the health secretary to oversee reforms. Additional steps include extending Martha’s Rule to all maternity and neonatal wards and a £187 million investment since April 2025 aimed at mitigating critical safety risks. While the Lib Dem health spokesperson Helen Morgan warned that past maternity scandals are “gathering dust,” a 2022 review of the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust cited catastrophic failures that may have caused over 200 baby deaths, prompting the trust to implement preventive measures. Labour criticised Davey’s past role in the coalition that altered maternity standards, but the Lib Dem proposals seek to reshape policy by ensuring continuous senior clinical presence, individualized midwifery support, and a substantial funding boost to curb the rising tide of childbirth injuries.
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