Management and morale: challenges in contemporary maternity care

This paper, the second in a series of six, brings together the findings from the Why do Midwives Leave? study and a subsequent study, Why do midwives leave: talking to managers (TT M). The TT M study was commissioned to explore managers’ perceptions of issues affecting satisfaction with practise and their perspectives on recruitment and retention. Many managers were concerned that they had limited power to effect real change in the practise environment. There was an overwhelming consensus among managers that staff shortages and inappropriate midwifery establishments underlay many of the problems that they faced. Although often committed, personally and professionally to the ideal of woman centred care, staff constraints limited the viability of this as they struggled to ensure a safe level of staffing on wards on a day to day basis.