Poll: Should mums to be get a £3,000 personal birth budget?
Pregnant women should be given a personal budget which could allow them to appoint their own midwife, says a major review into maternity services.
Mums to be mothers should be given a budget of around £3,000 to be spent on NHS services to ensure they get the care they desire, the review authors said.
Under the proposed scheme, women would be told about all local providers of NHS care and the services they offer. They would then make decisions about how and where they receive care.
For instance, women may chose a provider which ensures continuity of care from the same midwife throughout pregnancy, birth and postnatal care, the authors said.
Women would also be able to pick between a number of providers, for instance, they could pick a hospital near their workplace for routine scans and a hospital closer to home for the birth of their child.
The authors of the National Maternity Review likened the scheme to personal health budgets, where people with long-term conditions and disabilities are given a say over how NHS money is spent on them.
Some have criticised the personal health budgets scheme for being open to abuse, with reports of people using their budgets to buy holidays or computer consoles, but the review's authors said only accredited providers would be eligible under this scheme.
Officials say the proposed move aims to give women more choice over how and where they have their babies - a key decision considering half of maternity services in England are deemed "inadequate" or "require improvement" in terms of safety.
The review highlights some concerns over the safety of maternity services, even though there have been drastic improvements in the last decade.
