Following vehement opposition from maternity organisations and doctors, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has today removed its guidance for CCGs ('Making sense of commissioning Maternity Services in England', published August 14) from the RCOG website.Meanwhile, in the Sun newspaper today, Emma Little and Martyn Halle report:
'Cathy Warwick, of the Royal College of Midwives, defended the proposals, insisting: “There are women who do not want to have caesareans or epidurals who are having them at the moment.”'
4 comments:
Pauline, thanks for spotting the original guidelines and blowing the whistle on them. I'm glad that they have apparently had second thoughts about this document, but the fact that it has disappeared without warning is problematic because it means that responses to it (such as the one you wrote) can be dismissed as biased or overreaction, since people can no longer see the actual document you refer to. Do you have the original PDF? I THINK I downloaded it onto my laptop (need to check), and I can send it to you if you want to put it onto your website for readers' reference...
Thanks very much, and you're right, it's a very good idea for people to be able to see the document and make up their own mind about its contents. I've linked to it on this post:
http://cesareandebate.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/what-is-normal-birth-asks-bbc-womans.html
You may be interested to know that the RCOG have now reinstated the document with a clarifying statement http://www.rcog.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigning-and-opinions/statement/rcog-statement-response-joint-commissioning-document
Thanks very much Miranda; I appreciate your post. Yes, I found out about this on Friday morning, and I plan to blog about it very soon. In brief, I think RCOG is making a mistake by not reviewing or even replacing this document, as indeed do many of its members. Thanks again, Pauline.
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