Maternity CQC Report

Since the inspection, the Trust has launched a maternity improvement programme, working to improve the concerns raised by the CQC.  

Improvements include: 

• Undertaking works to increase the number of rooms available in the maternity centre for triage
• Enhancements to the environment so women, including those who might be deteriorating, have access to a member of staff at all times
• Full compliance with mandatory training and a strong learning culture
• Permanent leadership team in place, whom staff feel able to reach out to and share ideas and concerns.

We would recommend talking to your community midwife in the first instance.

If you’d like to speak to other parents, you can do so via the Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership.

For the most up to date information, please also refer to our website. 

Our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) is here for you to discuss any concerns or feedback you might have with your current care.

You can contact them on 01793 604031 or email gwh.pals@nhs.net. 

PALS are available from 9am-4pm, Monday-Friday.

We would like to provide reassurance to all of our women and birthing people and their families who are booked to have their babies at Great Western Hospitals that our maternity services are a safe place to have your baby. 

We appreciate the publication of the latest CQC inspection of our maternity services may be causing families accessing our services to feel concerned about the safety of the service, and of how this may impact them. This is not what we would want for any of the women, birthing people and families accessing our services.

We are committed to and are working with the CQC to ensure that all the concerns raised as part of the report are addressed and resolved promptly.  

At the start of every shift the senior team reviews staffing for the next 48 hours, and we will always ensure there are enough midwives to look after you. 

Our staffing rotas are planned and published in advance, and we are fortunate to have a large pool of bank staff who support the service by covering shifts that are vacant due to staff sickness, for example. 

We are committed to the continued improvement of midwifery and medical staffing levels.  

We are dedicated to providing the safest and best possible care to you and your baby. As a team we carry out daily safety checks of our equipment and environment and undertake regular communications and huddles to ensure relevant information is shared about the care needs of your baby. 

Security of the ward is monitored closely by all staff and all access through the doors to our postnatal ward are controlled by staff on the ward so that access is restricted to the public. This is to ensure the safety of our women, birthing people and their babies on our unit. 

To ensure we are fully prepared for the unlikely event of an attempted baby abduction, we run baby abduction drills throughout the year as part of our staff training programme. 

If you see anything suspicious or are concerned about you and your baby’s safety at any time, please report this immediately to a member of staff who will alert our security team. 

When the CQC visited maternity services, women told them they felt safe, well supported and cared for by both the midwifery and medical teams. Staff explained risks and involved people in the decision-making process. 

If you do spot something you’re not happy with, you can speak to the ward or clinical manager, or your named midwife. Additionally, there is always a senior midwife on duty for the maternity unit who would be happy to speak with you. We also run a ‘Friends and Family’ that we ask service users to complete – this gives the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback. 

Martha’s Rule is in place in the maternity services to enable you to seek a second opinion should you choose to and there are posters around the unit to ensure all families are aware of this service. 

Women have access to contribute and feedback about their experiences through the local Maternal and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) who also feedback to the trust regularly to drive improvement across the service. 

We listen to our patient feedback via complaints, compliments and incident forms, as your opinions are really important to us. 

Regularly monitoring our processes enables us to ensure high quality standards are in place and improvements are made where necessary. 

We have a dedicated audit midwife and an annual audit plan going forwards. We also have regular meetings between our teams in maternity to present findings, share learnings, and ensure we are always improving. 

We are committed to our continuous improvement programme, responding to all of the areas of improvement raised within the CQC report. We’ve already made significant steps following the inspection, including improving the environment so women have access to a member of staff at all times, full compliance with mandatory training and a strong, permanent leadership team in place.  

The Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) is a team of people who have had engagement with maternity services and who are interested in working with us to make our services better.  

They work with us when we develop any new systems, processes or leaflets to ensure their voices are heard, experiences are learned from, and suggestions considered to improve and develop our services to truly reflect the requirements of pregnant women and their families locally. 

We work closely and have positive relationships with the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices partnership (MNVP). The MNVP engage regularly with our maternity leadership team to ensure voices of women are heard and feedback is passed on, including a bi-monthly triangulation of feedback meeting. 

The MNVP are always interested in hearing from women and birthing people who would like to be involved in helping shape and develop maternity services at Great Western Hospitals. You do not need to have any experience in order to be involved and you would always be very welcome at any of the meetings held between the MNVP and hospital.