Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Paragraph: 38
We further recommend that the Department work with the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists...
Recommendation
We further recommend that the Department work with the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and Health Education England to consider how to deliver an adequate and sustainable level of obstetric training posts to enable trusts to deliver safe obstetric staffing over the years to come. This work should also consider the anaesthetic workforce.
Paragraph Reference:
38
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
29. We accept this recommendation. 30. The Department and Health Education England (HEE) already work closely with system partners to determine the number of training places for a particular specialty, including obstetrics and gynaecology and anaesthetics. 31. An example of this collaboration is HEE’s joint workforce group with the RCOG. The aim of this group is to explore and implement the deliverables for the development of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) workforce outlined in HEE’s Maternity Transformation Workforce Strategy. The work is being progressed through five Task and Finish Groups, which are led by the RCOG. These groups are focusing on a range of initiatives including multi-disciplinary working and profiling and modelling of the O&G workforce. 32. We are working with partners to ensure that the number of training posts in O&G and anaesthetics, along with all other medical specialties, is in line with national and regional workforce requirements. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of current arrangements, including considering the need for an expansion of training places. 33. In addition, as the Committee notes, the Department recently funded the RCOG to develop a tool, which will calculate the number of obstetricians at all grades required locally and nationally to provide a safe, personalised maternity service within the context of the wider workforce. 34. Over the next year, the RCOG will collaborate with and gather data from across the health sector to determine how the tool can help NHS Trusts to understand their own medical staffing needs, and provide standardised, safe and personalised care tailored to their communities. 35. The tool will be freely available to NHS Trusts across the country next year, and will provide maternity staff with a new methodology that calculates the numbers, skill sets and grades of medical staff required within individual maternity units based on local needs. It will help Trusts tackle disparities by taking into account local factors such as birth rates, age of population, the socio-economic status of the area, and geographical factors.