Birthrate Plus supports safe and effective maternity care

Birthrate Plus is a midwifery-specific workforce planning approach used in the United Kingdom and other nation’s healthcare systems which is designed to support safe and effective maternity services.

We work with organisations to enable informed decision‑making, service planning, and sustainable workforce solutions.

Birthrate Plus is applicable to maternity systems across the globe and had been used in Australia, Hong Kong, Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands and Belgium, as well as Wales, Northern Ireland and England

Developed with maternity services over a thirty-year period, we provide accurate assessments into the levels of staffing required to support safe and effective maternity care. We do this by assessing the needs of women and their babies, and the clinical and non-clinical factors impacting on staff’s time.

We have two products:

The Acuity App which provides real‑time visibility of clinical need, allowing flexible deployment of staff to areas experiencing higher activity (Acuity) enabling responsive and safe staffing across inpatient maternity settings.
The Workforce Planning Tool which combines evidence and workload data to support long-term service planning and workforce resourcing.

Download the flyers

For more details on both the Workforce Planning and Acuity app please download our flyers.

Workforce flyer

Acuity App flyer

What we offer

We are an independent organisation with over 30 years experience supporting services to understand demand, capacity and workforce requirements, and to translate evidence into practical action.

We partner with health systems, professional bodies and service leaders to align our expertise to local contexts, recognising that no two systems are exactly the same.

Birthrate Plus is:

Rigorous, robust and has transparent methodologies
Built to ensure women and babies receive safe midwifery care
Professional, credible and independent
Collaborative with local stakeholders
Adaptable to different models of care and policy environments
Provided by a team of registered Midwives working to support Midwives to improve outcomes for mothers and babies

Infographic - Light Blue BG updated 28 Jan

Birthrate Plus also offers 4 x areas of support alongside our products including:

Advisory and consultancy support

Strategic advice to help you understand workforce challenges, service pressures and future requirements within your own system.

Scoping and feasibility work

Early‑stage work to explore whether and how our approaches could be applied in your country or organisation.

Adaptation of existing frameworks

Support to adapt established methodologies, tools or principles so they align with local data, policy and models of care.

Knowledge sharing and capability building

Workshops, briefings or collaborative work to build understanding and confidence among local teams and leaders.

The path to work with us

If you are interested in exploring how we could work together, please complete the international enquiry form available at:

Birthrate Plus registration – International enquiry – Fill in form

The process will include:

Initial enquiry
You contact us to outline your context, interests and questions.
Scoping discussion
We arrange an exploratory conversation to understand your system, objectives and constraints.
Tailored proposal
We develop a proposal that reflects your needs, local context, and level of support required.

There is no obligation after the initial discussion.

You can also contact us on [email protected]

Case study

Please see below a case study highlighting our international work.

Country: Netherlands

The Netherlands adopted a standard for intrapartum care in 2016 (CPZ, 2016). A key element of this standard is the provision of one-to-one care during labour for women birthing in hospitals. However, since it’s introduction (the level of) compliance with the standard has not been

evaluated. We conducted a thorough and extensive literature search to assess which workforce planning tool would be most suitable for this purpose. We concluded that Birthrate Plus was the most suitable workforce planning tool for assessment of staffing in midwifery service provision (Cronie et al, 2022).

As minimum staffing levels are not mandated in the Netherlands, we decided to conduct a pilot study to assess the feasibility of using Birthrate Plus methodology for the purpose of workforce planning in (hospital) midwifery service provision (HMSP). With permission from, and in collaboration with Birthrate Plus, we used the case mix and hours analysis tools in the context of the Dutch model of HMSP in a preliminary examination of workforce planning in five hospitals in the Netherlands.

We concluded that Birthrate Plus methodology was useful in auditing staffing levels in Dutch maternity care (Cronie et al, 2024).

Doug Cronie, Institute for Healthcare, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences

Refs:

College of Perinatal Care. Care standard integrated birth care, version 1.1 2016. Utrecht, the Netherlands: College Perinatale Zorg; 2016

Cronie DJ, Rosman A, Vries R. Measure to improve: is there a patient‐acuity measurement tool suitable for use in maternity service provision in the Netherlands? A systematic review. Health Sci Rep. 2022;5(6):e756. https://doi. org/10.1002/hsr2.756

Cronie, D. J., Rosman, A., & de Vries, R. (2024). Measure to improve: A pilot study of Birthrate Plus in the Netherlands. British Journal of Midwifery, 32(6), 302–306.

FAQs

Are you coming to any international events or partnerships

Yes, we attended The 34th International Confederation of Midwives Triennial Congress in Lisbon, Portugal in June 2026. All upcoming events will be listed on the News page.

Do you only work in the UK?

No. We work internationally and tailor our support to different systems and contexts.

Can your approaches be adapted to our country or model of care?

Yes. Adaptation and contextual understanding are central to how we work.

What is Birthrate Plus?

Birthrate Plus calculates how many midwives a maternity service needs, across hospital and community care. For more detail, please see our flyers Birthrate Plus – A4 Workforce Flyer – International and Birthrate – A5 Flyer – International

We're outside the UK, will it work here?

Birthrate Plus has been used in England, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Tasmania and New South Wales. Our approach is tailored to each service, so please get in touch and we’ll talk through what it would look like for you.

What if we don't have the data?

Scoping starts with what you already hold and we build from there, around what you need and how you work. It starts with a consultancy conversation.

How do we start?

Please fill in the enquiry form above or contact us on [email protected]

Where can we meet you?

Our events are listed on the news page. Not all of them will be near you, and we can always meet virtually, please request this when filling in the enquiry form.