Maternity services at Worthing Hospital have been rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – recognising major improvements made by the service in recent years.
The CQC praised maternity staff for “going above and beyond to support women,” for providing care that is “effective and responsive”, and for ensuring families feel “involved in decisions about their care”.
The inspection team also highlighted a “more positive culture” where staff feel confident to speak up, and they also noted the consistently high satisfaction ratings from people using the service – more than 90% of women usually rate the service positively in the ‘Friends and Family’ test used widely across the NHS.
As well as upgrading the overall rating of Worthing Hospital’s maternity services from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’, the CQC also improved the rating for how ‘well-led’ the service is – also from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’. The maternity team were also rated as good in terms of how ‘caring’, ‘responsive’ and ‘effective’ they were in supporting women and families.
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust has made a raft of improvements to services in recent years, which have made maternity care safer, better, and more resilient.
The Sussex service is also part of the national Amos review which is reviewing care at a number of Trusts with a view to making recommendations as to how services can be strengthened across the country.
Key changes which have improved care in Sussex, include:
- Stronger leadership and culture, with staff feeling more confident to raise concerns following the appointment of an independent ‘freedom to speak up’ guardian.
- Strengthened staffing capacity, with 40 additional qualified midwives recruited across the Trust’s maternity units. This means maternity services are now fully staffed, compared with a vacancy rate of 15% at the time of the previous inspection.
- A centralised triage service which uses highly experienced midwives to manage phone calls into the service – Midwives no longer have to balance this task with labour ward responsibilities, and this change alone has demonstrably improved safety and quality – in the last 22 months there have been no adverse safety incidents, and no complaints, relating to this triage service.
- Better access to specialist midwives for mental health, stronger safeguarding support with the recruitment of a Trust wide lead for Safeguarding Children and a bereavement area which had recently been equipped to make the stay of bereaved parents as comfortable as possible.
- The creation of calming birthing environments with features such as dimmed lighting and music.
- The introduction of ‘hope boxes’ for women who are legally separated from their babies after birth, containing meaningful items from the baby and mother.
- Inspectors also noted close engagement with the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, as well as consistently high levels of positive feedback from women, with surveys showing more than 90% of women reporting a positive experience of care.
Dr Tim Taylor, chief of service for the Women and Children’s division at the Trust, said:
“We welcome the CQC’s recognition of the improvements made to maternity services at Worthing Hospital. We know we have made great strides to improve maternity services in recent years, but it is really encouraging to have that improvement recognised by the CQC as well.
“Our teams work extremely hard to give people safe, compassionate care – I hope that they welcome this new rating as a recognition of the huge amount of the commitment and compassion they offer every day. And I hope that local families feel encouraged that the service they rely on is working to such a high level.
“We never lose sight of the utter devastation that families face if a baby is lost, and so the work to improve is never over – we must keep trying to be better.
“We are committed to building on the progress made at Worthing, and to listening to families, including through our work with the Sussex National Maternity Voices Partnership. We need to ensure future improvements are shaped around the needs of the people who use our services.”
While recognising significant progress, the CQC also identified areas for further improvement in their latest inspection, including ensuring clinical guidance and policies are up to date, strengthening risk management and audit processes, and expanding obstetric theatre capacity – all areas which are in the process of being addressed.