Maternity units “often” had less than half the number of staff needed to operate safely and unqualified students were left to look after multiple women on postnatal or labour wards. The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk in a maternity culture so toxic that it feels like a “game of Russian roulette”, midwives have warned.Ī report by front-line staff has described “endemic” bullying and “dangerously low” staffing levels, which meant that women in labour were treated as if they were “on a conveyor belt”.
