Is caseloading sustainable? Lessons from the front line at King’s College Hospital

At King’s College Hospital in Camberwell, south London, we have a 25 year tradition of NHS caseloading, with named midwives providing continuity for all antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care for women and their families (Wiseman & Holland 2018). Caseloading midwives care for 900-1,000 mixed-risk women each year, about 18% of King’s 5000-5,500 births. In this article we describe the experience of caseloading from the perspective of the 30 midwives at King’s working in this way, and we have included their voices here, as well as those of local women who have received caseloading care. We discuss how we organise our teams and how we coped with the challenge of major organisational change. Finally, we reflect on our outcomes and what contributes to the sustainability of the caseloading model