How much data is now available on midwifery staffing needs and can it be used to predict staffing needs when changes in services are planned?
Since 2001 more than 200 maternity services have used BR+ and their data have been stored on a database. Over time we have been able to track changes in midwifery workload and add to the database to provide a comprehensive profile of maternity services, their activity and workload, and their staffing establishments. At present we are using the database for England from 2003/2006 as a means of producing ratios of births per w.t.e. midwife to assist units in calculating staff based upon mergers of services etc. These data have also been used to inform DOH reports.
