Report of Midwives Salaries Committee : salaries and emoluments of institutional and domiciliary midwives, non-medical supervisors of midwives and of pupil midwives.

  • Great Britain. Midwives Salaries Committee.
Date:
1943
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Midwives Salaries Committee : salaries and emoluments of institutional and domiciliary midwives, non-medical supervisors of midwives and of pupil midwives. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Central Midwives Board in respect of midwives. It is true that the Board have been empowered to make, and have made, a Rule as to the wearing by midwives of a protected badge, but in our view this does not go far enough. We are of opinion that you should take steps, as soon as it is practicable to do so, to provide the Central Midwives Board with the power of framing Rules regarding the uniform of State Certified midwives, and to make it an offence for persons other than State Certified midwives to wear that uniform. The provision of a national uniform would, we believe, contribute to the public standing of the midwife and help to give the profession a sense of unity. | 11. Midwives deliver two-thirds of the 600,000 babies born in England and Wales every year, and act as maternity nurses under a doctor’s direction at: most of the remaining confinements. 12. Legislation during the present century has placed midwifery on a sound professional basis and has done much to improve the status of the midwile. The Midwives Act, 1902, set up the Central Midwives Board to supervise the training and practice of midwives and to frame Rules for this purpose, subject to the approval of the Minister of Health (originally the Privy Council), and appointed Local Supervising Authorities to exercise general supervision over all midwives practising within their areas. There were amending Acts in 1918 and 1926, and finally the Midwives Act, 1936, placed upon Local Supervising Authorities the duty of organising domiciliary mid-_ wifery services adequate for the needs of their areas. 13. Despite these developments, public opinion has been slow to realise the true status and importance of the midwife or the vital part which she plays to-day in the public health services. A franker and more enlightened attitude towards childbearing and the midwifery service should be one of the first aims of health education. 14. About half the midwives practising at the present time are general State Registered nurses, as well as State Certified midwives. The course of train- ing prescribed by the Central Midwives Board for pupil midwives who are general State Registered nurses consists of two parts, each lasting six months. For pupil midwives who are not State Registered nurses, the course is also divided into two parts, but the first part lasts 18 months; the second part is the same as for a State Registered nurse, lasting six months. Nine out of Io pupils in training now in institutions providing the second part of the training — are general State Registered nurses, and it seems probable that the midwife will in future be recruited largely from the ranks of the nursing profession. It is an undoubted advantage to a midwife to have the nursing qualification, and especially so in positions in which she has general duties and responsibili- ties apart from those of midwifery proper. Accordingly, we decided that it was desirable in certain cases to make a differentiation in salaries between one who possesses the qualification of general State Registered nurse, and one who does not possess that qualification. 7 15. On the whole, the prospects for the future of a woman who intends to make midwifery her profession have hitherto compared unfavourably with those of the woman who makes nursing her profession. The scope for advancement to senior posts is more limited. In the hospital service, for example, maternity hospitals are never so large as the bigger general or special hospitals, and the matron’s responsibility and remuneration have been cor- respondingly smaller. In the domiciliary service, the highest paid posts to which a midwife can aspire are those of Non-Medical Supervisor of Midwives or Superintendent or Sister-in-Charge of a District Midwives Home, and these posts are limited in number, nor has the remuneration attaching to them been comparable with that of the Matron of a large hospital. We have borne in 28132 A 2 J