The Real Midwives of Poplar: Delivering life in east London

Recruitment is becoming harder and there are shortages here in east London as there are around the country.

Holly Eastlake runs the midwife-led birthing team out of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, the largest in the area.

She has been a midwife for 13 years, but says these are challenging times for the profession.

Long, anti-social hours, she says, and the removal of bursaries for trainee midwives have made things tougher.

She explains: “We’ve gone from what felt like having a lot of midwifery staff, a lot of people interested in becoming midwives, to it now becoming not such a desirable profession.

“We’re noticing that our numbers for students and also retaining staff are really, really decreasing as well which is really changing the landscape of midwifery.”

Mosun Ojo-Williams has seen many of those changes. Aged 60, she’s now considering retiring after more than 20 years in the East End.