The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented change in the NHS. It has been remarkable to see the scale and pace of this change and the collective effort of staff to support it.
Throughout the pandemic maternity services have continued to provide high quality, safe care to women and their families. The RCOG and RCM have provided guidance to support both service reconfiguration and delivery.
That said, as a College we heard from members, fellows and via our council representatives, that in some units/hospitals there were concerns about the redeployment of staff away from maternity services to support other areas of the hospital and this had knock on effects for remaining staff working to maintain their usual standards of patient care.
This survey was therefore undertaken to gather feedback specifically with regards to medical staffing, to learn from our experiences and to make recommendations for the future should a second wave occur.
We would like to thank those of you who responded so promptly to this request during an immensely busy time.
This information will enable us to support you to make sure your organisations respond in the best way possible for you and your colleagues, and for women and their babies, in the future.