Abstract

The majority of midwives in the UK are employed within the NHS. They are legally bound to fulfil their contractual obligations to their employers. At the same time they are professionally mandated to interpret and act on the UKCC's Code of professional conduct. Midwives have always maintained that they are autonomous practitioners, and the Code is written in a way that endorses this belief. Underlying the Code is the assumption that midwives have moral and professional freedom to act on its imperatives. However, midwives' claim to autonomy is flawed, and therefore the Code's claim to be a source of empowerment is also flawed. Underlying the difficulties is a conflict derived from the imposition of a deontologically-based professional Code on to a workforce that is constrained within and employed by the utilitarian-based NHS