As someone who knows the actual facts and figures surrounding the 'midwife crisis' and also the indy situation (two different things entirely) I'd have to say that press reporting of it is wildly inaccurate or misleading and so is Dr Crippen's blog, to be honest (more so because despite evidence to the contrary, he will not sway from the opinion that ALL midwives are dangerous and don't know what they are doing, which I find insulting so I don't read it any more because it patently isn't true). There IS a shortage of midwives; there are not enough midwives employed to do what they are meant to do. However; there is also a shortage of jobs, which means that newly qualified midwives aren't guaranteed a job at all once they finish training, I know some people who worked in Tesco's because they couldn't get a midwifery job. And even in London where it used to be easy to get a job, it's not any more. The problem is that the Trusts can't afford to pay more midwives so the posts don't exist. Re the Independent Midwife situation, if you are indy you are ten times more likely to get investigated by the NMC for some kind of irregularity- not because the client puts a case but because some local hospital complains about you (where they have no jurisdiction over what you do!). Of those complaints as far as I am aware, NONE have ever resulted in the midwife being disciplined or struck off, where the midwife was an indy. Litigation is much higher within the NHS where a 'not my problem' attitude is magnified by fragmented care. Independent midwives often take difficult cases, where women may have been told they are 'not allowed' what they want on the NHS (be it a vaginal birth after 2 caesareans, vaginal breech or even just a straightforward home birth!). If I was to have a breech baby I'd want an indy. If I was to have twins vaginally I'd want an indy, because they are truly not deskilled in these areas of childbirth. On a last note re Northwick Park- I read the cases the other day- not altogether shocking to be honest but the main failures were palpably made by obstetric staff, usually registrars, making errors that midwives can't be expected to rectify, for example the clinical appropriateness of drugs that midwives can't prescribe. Other staff were culpable in many cases also (GPs, paramedics and A&E staff in some cases). It simply wasn't, as some would purport, 'midwives are rubbish'. Anthea- you are totally right though, sometimes labour can just catch you by surprise! But you can't assume that someone might be in silent labour when they don't look like they are in labour and have no clinical signs of labour cos chances are you might be there for days! C NHS Midwife