iHV welcomes One Voice letter on cuts to local public health budgets

iHV welcomes the call from the One Voice Partnership to a county council to rethink its plan to cut £2.09 million per year from its public health budget.

In a letter to Hampshire County Council (HCC), the One Voice Partnership (which includes the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), Sands, and the National Childbirth Trust (NCT)) has called on HCC to re-examine as a matter of urgency the impact that the proposed budget cuts will have on women before, during and after pregnancy, and on their babies. Not only would the proposal widen inequalities yet further, but it could open the door to preventable harm to women and their babies.

The One Voice Partnership has called the HCC proposal a canary in the mine, with local government budgets across the country under significant pressure.

One Voice is also reminding all local councils of their statutory safeguarding responsibilities and the impact of any budget cuts on the wider health and social care system, including maternity services.

Furthermore, One Voice say that the introduction of non-face-to-face methods for delivering the Healthy Child Programme are currently untested and there is not enough evidence on their effectiveness as an alternative method of providing support and identifying risk and vulnerability.

Read RCM full press release

Read One Voice letter to Hampshire County Council

One Voice letter to Nadine Dorries on improving maternity service buildings

Leading health organisations have called for upgrades to England’s NHS maternity service buildings to improve care for women and conditions for staff in a letter to Health Minister Nadine Dorries today.

Women’s maternity care was significantly impacted during the pandemic, made worse by old, poorly designed buildings, according to the One Voice coalition of health organisations and the Society of Radiographers. Many women were unable to have their partners with them because the layout of maternity facilities prevented social distancing, and would have put women, their partners and other service users at risk of catching the virus. One Voice is calling for better design and use of space, such as having single rooms and dedicated areas for maternity clinics and scans.

Alison Morton, Acting Executive Director at the Institute of Health Visiting, commented:

“As a member of the One Voice coalition of health partners, we support this call from our maternity colleagues for upgrades to England’s NHS maternity service buildings. The government’s recent White Paper on health and social care has highlighted once again that positive outcomes are fundamentally delivered “in a place”. By improving the quality and safety of the environments in which we work, through sustained investment in “place”, we can make a big difference to the outcomes and experiences of care that we provide to families, as well as the health and wellbeing of the workforce.”

Read the full press release on the RCM website

Read letter to Health Minister Nadine Dorries