As I write this, there are less than 100 days to go until the most likely general election date of 6 May. With politics so fluid, it may well come around even sooner. The RCM will be lobbying the parties and their candidates direct from our London headquarters, but elections offer an additional opportunity for you to help us do that.

Elections are a time when power rests, not in the hands of the politicians, but in your hands. They need your votes to keep power, or to win it. And even in this era of facebook, twitter and all those other whiz-bang internet tools, candidates will still be out on the doorstep, speaking face-to-face with voters.

We should all use those opportunities to challenge them on how they and their parties will improve maternity care.

So, if one or more of your local parliamentary candidates comes knocking, let me suggest a few questions and issues. Why not ask them if their party will recruit more NHS midwives? Tell them about your experience of working as a midwife, and any of the pressures and strains you operate under. Ask them about what their party plans to do with public sector pay and the NHS
pension. Will their party support student midwives, offering them better financial support? Will they work to give women choice and control over their care, and maternity services that are better than they are now? They may not know the answer off the top of their heads as they will be asked about 101 things by voters, so ask them to write to you with the answers – don’t let them get away with niceties and platitudes.

With health a devolved issue, the House of Commons only controls the NHS in England. That said, if you live in other countries, you might still want to ask about your local situation.

Whatever the constitutional position, politicians will want to respond to what you say.

From headquarters, we will be contacting all candidates from the mainstream parties with our own ‘maternity manifesto’.

This will challenge candidates to work to ensure that frontline NHS services, like maternity care, are protected from the pressures that will be put on fi nances elsewhere. We will be asking them to make reducing inequalities the heart of their work. We will be pushing them to pledge to protect the pay and pension entitlement of NHS staff. We will also be asking them to act to cut obesity levels, to improve public health. They will also be asked to work to include fathers and families more.

Finally, we will be pushing hard for better postnatal care – we asked the users of the netmums website to choose their priority for us, and that was their choice, by a country mile.