Patient feedback and involvement

2026 NHS Maternity Survey

We will soon be conducting a survey to find out about mothers’ recent experiences of antenatal care, labour and birth, and postnatal care.

This survey is part of a national programme to improve experiences of maternity services.

Your feedback is important to us

Taking part in the survey is voluntary and all answers are confidential.

If you are invited to take part, your name, phone number and postal address will be shared with researchers, who will send you a letter explaining how to take part, and text message reminders. You can complete this survey online or on paper.

If you do not want to take part, or have any questions about the survey please contact:

• Princess Royal Hospital:  01444 448678, [email protected]
• St Richards Hospital:  01243 831822, [email protected]
• Royal Sussex County/Sussex Eye, Royal Alex Children’s hospital’s:  01273 664511, [email protected]
• Worthing and St Richards hospital’s:  01903 285032, [email protected]

We want to hear about your experience with us. Feedback to us via the friends and family patient surveys.

Feedback from patients is essential to help us continue to make improvements within our hospitals. Have your say by completing a survey about your care and treatment.

• Inpatients
• Outpatients
• Maternity
• Emergency
• Radiology

Results from our Friends and Family tests can be found on the NHS England website.

Our ratings for October 2025

Below are the percentage of patients who gave us a positive or negative score also broken down by those who answered; “Very good” or “Good” to the question: “Overall, how was your experience of our service?” last month.

Positive responses received can be broken down by area:

11,889 patients completed a survey – 91% positive rating

• Inpatient – 92%
• Maternity – 96%
• Outpatient – 97%
• A&E – 81%

We take part in a number of nationally run surveys led by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

If you are sent a questionnaire as part of one of these surveys, please try to complete and return it so that we canlearn from your experiences and make improvements as necessary in future. 

The results of our surveys can be found on the Care Quality Commission website.

Care Opinion is a place where you can share your experience of health or care services, and help make them better for everyone.

Feedback

You can leave feedback on our Twitter and Facebook pages. It is always encouraging for our staff to hear about care that they have delivered well.

Complaints

For any complaints, please use the Trust’s complaints procedure.

Social media is not monitored consistently throughout the day. The Trusts complaints procedure allows us to communicate with you more effectively to get more detail so we can resolve your issue.

Do you want to be more involved in shaping the service you use?

There are patient user groups across the Trust that you can join.  By joining you will:

• Contribute ideas and shape service developments
• Let us know what works and how we can improve
• Help spread good practice
• Share your experiences with other patients

Maternity Voices Partnership (or MVP) is a team of local parents, birthing people and their families, commissioners and healthcare providers who work together to review and improve local maternity care.

What they do

Their primary role is to listen. They listen to your thoughts and feelings about your experience of pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period throughout UHSussex. They hear your feedback via surveys, email, listening events and meetings. They meet regularly with the Trust to ensure your voices are heard, the feedback is passed on and any issues addressed.

UHSussex Maternity Voices covers the following four hospitals and those giving birth in the community:

• St Richards Hospital in Chichester
• Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton
• Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath
• Worthing Hospital

Healthwatch England is a national organisation that makes sure the overall views and experiences of people with health and social services are heard of and taken seriously.

Healthwatch gives local people in the area the chance to voice their views on health and social care services. Improving them today and for the future. Healthwatch represents the views of people who use the services, carers and the public on the health and wellbeing boards set up by local authorities.

 Ways in which Healthwatch works for the local community;

• Help to shape and improve the services the local communities’ use
• Engaging with people in your community and if you haven’t met us yet, please get in touch!
• An open organisation and want to make it easy for you to talk to us
• Inclusive and want people from every part of your community to join us
• Ask us what we’re doing and we’ll always tell you what’s happening
• You can hold us to account
• Here to help services to improve
• Notice the bad things they do, and the good
• Use your evidence to build a true picture of your local services

Find out more at:

• Healthwatch West Sussex
• Healthwatch East Sussex

The laboratory regularly seeks information as to whether the service has met the needs and requirements of users.

Please help us to improve our service by completing our user survey. Alternatively, you can also email us at[email protected].

Our annual STAR Awards celebrate our colleagues, volunteers and teams who have demonstrated our Trust values and excelled within their roles. We encourage staff, patients and members of the public to submit nominations for our hardworking staff and volunteers who improve patient care every day.