THE Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is the trade union and professional body that represents the interests of midwives throughout Britain as well as campaigning for high-quality services for women and their families.

Last year RCM members took industrial action for the first time in our 134-year history and this year the RCM has become the most recent recruit to the TUC.

The status of maternity services in Britain is the envy of many countries.

Midwives deliver generally excellent services and Britain and Northern Ireland have policies that aim to promote woman-centred care, improved safety, greater choice of place and type of birth, a reduction in unnecessary interventions and early years development.

Midwifery involvement in public health has contributed to significant and sustained improvements in the health of the population and in tackling health inequalities.

There has been a continued increase in the number of midwives working in maternity services — in England alone the number of midwives is up by almost 1,500 over the last five years.

And at a time when training commissions for other professions have been cut, student midwife training places have been maintained in recent years.

Thanks in large part to the increase in the midwifery workforce, the majority of women who use maternity services receive one-to-one care during labour and birth.

Women’s satisfaction with maternity services remains at a high level and there has been a palpable increase in maternity services engagement with fathers.

However, with the number of births still about 100,000 higher than it was at the turn of the century, NHS midwives continue to operate under intense pressure.

The impact of this higher number of births in England is multiplied by the growing complexity of pregnancies, due to factors such as the continuing growth of births to older women and the increased prevalence of conditions such as diabetes and obesity among pregnant women.

England is 2,600 midwives short of what the service needs which, allied to increased funding constraints, means that midwives have less time to spend caring for each woman, with the result that the quality of care can be impaired and not all women are receiving the type of care they say that they want.

This is particularly the case for postnatal services, where women and families are receiving care that falls short of what professional guidelines and expert advice recommends.

Perinatal mental health services are another area where a history of chronic underfunding often results in vulnerable women being denied vital care and support, exacerbated by the recent revelation that the government has broken its election promise to increase spending on mental health care.

Nevertheless, there is a historic opportunity to eliminate England’s longstanding midwife shortage and thereby enhance the care that all women and families receive.

That is why the RCM has brought a motion to Congress which calls on the TUC to highlight the benefits for women, families and society in investing in midwifery care and to campaign for the employment of more midwives in England.

• Sean O’Sullivan is Royal College of Midwives head of health and social policy.