Strategic health authority maternity workforce plans are based on delivering safe care and their commitment to Maternity Matters (published on 3 April 2007), a copy of which has already been placed in the Library. Safe levels of midwives to births will vary according to variations such as case mix, local models of service delivery and staffing skill mix.
(2) how many full-time equivalent midwives were in post at (a) Leeds General Infirmary and (b) St. James's Hospital in each month of the last two years.
The information is not available in the format requested. The following table shows the number of qualified midwives and bank staff in the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust as at 30 September each specified year.
Full-time equivalent Midwives Of which: bank 2005 309 — 2006 220 5 2007 287 5 Notes: 1. The figures above reflect data as published each year. However, 2006 data needs to be treated with caution. During the validation process for the 2007 NHS workforce census, Leeds Teaching Hospitals reported that its registered midwives for 2006 should have been 267 and not 215 (excluding bank) as submitted at the time. 2. Full time equivalent figures are rounded to the nearest whole number. 3. Data Quality: Workforce statistics are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data. Processing methods and procedures are continually being updated to improve data quality. Where this happens, any impact on figures already published will be assessed but unless this is significant at national level they will not be changed. Where there is impact only at detailed or local level this will be footnoted in relevant analyses. Source: The Information Centre for health and social care.