What does the pledge mean?

Labour’s manifesto committed to training “thousands more midwives”.

We have assumed this pledge applies to England, as both health and higher education are devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We don’t know what timeframe this pledge applies to, and whether it means training thousands more midwives a year or over the course of the parliament. It’s also not clear if it means training thousands more than would have been trained anyway under the previous Conservative government’s plans.

We have asked the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about this, and whether it has committed to a more specific target for the number of midwives to be trained, but we have yet to receive a response.

What progress has been made?

We are currently rating this pledge as “unclear or disputed”. More people are being accepted on midwifery courses than before the last general election, but it does not amount to thousands more so far.

Data from UCAS shows 3,540 applicants were accepted onto midwifery training courses in England in 2025, up from 3,420 in 2024 and 3,475 in 2023.

Under the current long-term NHS Workforce Plan, produced in 2023 while the Conservatives were in government, NHS England aimed to increase training places for midwives from 3,778 in 2022 to 4,269 by 2028.

A revised NHS Workforce Plan was due in the summer of 2025, although it has yet to be published. It may set out targets and measures to train and recruit more midwives in England.

It will then take time to see how these may affect uptake on midwifery courses or programmes.

It’s also worth noting that if the government meets its pledge to train “thousands” more midwives, this doesn’t necessarily mean the number of midwives working for NHS England will increase by the same amount.

Some already-trained midwives may leave the profession. Others may choose to work privately or outside the UK, and some trainee midwives may not finish their courses or end up registering to practise as a midwife.

In June 2026, following the publication of the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, the government said it will publish a “comprehensive national action plan” for maternity and neonatal services in December 2026, “setting out priority actions and long-term reform to deliver safer, fairer care”.

In the same announcement, the government said it was creating 1,000 temporary roles to help newly qualified midwives join the NHS and that these jobs “will help prevent a third of student midwives from leaving the profession".