Part of General Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 27 June 2024.
The Scottish Government values every single midwife and the extraordinary care that they provide day in, day out. I am aware of the decline in applications to midwifery undergraduate programmes, which is exactly why the education and development of students and staff has been a key workstream of the nursing and midwifery task force. The task force will report in the autumn, and its work will help to support the demands that the workforce is facing as it develops actions to diversify education and training pathways, to support longer-term workforce sustainability and to improve workplace culture, practice, flexibility, recruitment and retention.