The Care Quality Commission (CQC), has rated maternity services at Royal Stoke University Hospital as good following an inspection in November.
The service is run by University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust. CQC carried out an unannounced inspection of the service to follow up on the progress of improvements CQC told them to make at their previous inspection.
CQC had issued a warning notice at the previous inspection to focus the trust’s attention on improving safety for people using the service. Inspectors found significant improvements which means this warning notice has been removed.
The overall rating for the service, as well as the ratings for how safe and well-led the service is, have improved from requires improvement to good. This inspection didn’t look at how effective, caring and responsive the service is, which remain rated as good.
Steven Paisley, CQC deputy director of operations in the midlands, said:
“We were pleased to see that leaders and staff working in maternity services at Royal Stoke University Hospital had acted on our feedback from the previous inspection and worked hard to make improvements. Women and people using these services now had a much safer and improved experience of their care and treatment. Behind this was an improvement in how well-led the service was which in turn supported staff to provide better care.
“Leaders now thoroughly reviewed incidents to identify improvements and shared learnings to reduce the risk of these happening again. They also held weekly risk meetings to help keep people admitted to the unit safe.
“The trust was proactive in seeking feedback from people and their families about their experiences of care. The service had an open culture where people felt comfortable raising concerns.
“Staff showed care and compassion when supporting families. Our inspection team spoke to a family member who described how staff were on hand to answer questions and provide reassurance during their pregnancy. Another mother talked about how staff had been confident, knowledgeable and kept her updated after the birth."
“Overall, the maternity team at Royal Stoke University Hospital should be proud of the improvements our inspection found. We have identified some areas where they can make continued progress, and we look forward to seeing their plans develop.”
Inspectors found:
- Staff knew how to identify and report safeguarding concerns and recorded concerns in people’s care plans.
- The service worked closely with people and local organisations to plan and manage services, including the local maternity voices partnership
- There was a strong culture of quality improvement, with staff leading projects to help provide people with a better experience.
- The service carried out regular audits and benchmarked their performance data with other hospitals nationally.
- The inspection team found that the service had a well-structured team of midwifery and health professionals.
- Staff were open and honest. They talked people through risks in procedures and provided a full transparent explanation when incidents happened.
- The service made sure that women had access to mental health support through their perinatal mental health service.
- Staff triaged people quickly and delays were kept to a minimum.
- Leaders had a good understanding of the demographics of their local area and how certain groups could face health inequalities, and took action to reduce the impacts.
- Staff proactively recorded people’s smoking status and provided support to help them stop smoking.
- The unit was clean and medicines were securely stored and locked away.
However:
- Some staff didn’t feel confident that leaders would act on the concerns they raised.
- The inspection team saw some instances where staffing was below recommended numbers due to cover needed in other areas.
- The unit lacked posters and resources in other languages for people whose first language wasn’t English.
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the coming days.