Updated 10 August 2023
Pages 1 and 2 of this report relate to the hospital and the ratings of that location. From page 3 the ratings and information relate to maternity services based at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, also known as Seacombe Birth Centre.
We inspected the maternity service at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, also known as Seacombe Birth Centre, as part of our national maternity inspection programme. The programme aims to give an up-to-date view of hospital maternity care across the country and help us understand what is working well to support learning and improvement at a local and national level.
We will publish a report of our overall findings when we have completed the national inspection programme.
We carried out an announced focused inspection of the maternity service, looking only at the safe and well-led key questions.
The inspection was carried out using a pre-inspection data submission and an on-site inspection where we observed the environment, observed care, conducted interviews with patients and staff, reviewed policies, care records, medicines charts and documentation.
Following the site visit, we conducted interviews with senior leaders, specialist staff and stakeholders. We held focus groups for staff of all grades and roles and reviewed feedback from women and families about the trust. We ran a poster campaign during our inspection to encourage pregnant women and mothers who had used the service to give us feedback regarding care. We analysed the results to identify themes and trends.
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, also known as Seacombe Birth Centre is 1 of 2 sites for maternity services for the trust. It is a stand-alone midwifery led unit within Seacombe Children’s Centre in Wirral, Merseyside. The birth centre has 1 ensuite birthing room with a birthing pool. It is the base for the 'Highfield' maternity continuity of carer team who provide a continuity of carer community birth service to women and birthing people in Wirral, as well as staffing the birth centre. Between January and December 2022 there were 15 births at Seacombe Birth Centre and the Highfield team also supported 77 home births.
The local maternity population come from areas of higher levels of deprivation than the national average with 26% in the most deprived decile compared to 14% nationally. A higher proportion of mothers (91%) were White compared to the national averages.
The trust offers 4 birth options to women and birthing people including hospital setting, alongside midwifery led unit, freestanding midwifery led unit and home births.
Seacombe Birth Centre was registered with CQC in August 2022 and this is the first time this location has been inspected. We rated it as good because we rated safe and well-led as good.
We also inspected 1 other maternity service run by Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Our reports are here:
Arrowe Park Hospital – https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/RBL14
How we carried out the inspection
You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.