Pregnant women in England report domestic abuse
The gist
About 20,000 pregnant women a year disclose domestic abuse to England's maternity services.
Midwives say they lack the time and referral pathways to act on those disclosures.
How it unfolded
- recentlyClinical analysis estimates about 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse are made to maternity services in England every year.
- recentlyThe same analysis finds roughly 3.3 per cent of maternity booking appointments in English NHS trusts record active or non-recent domestic abuse.
- recentlyMidwifery and safeguarding figures respond, saying frontline staff confront these cases routinely but lack time, staffing and referral pathways to manage them.