Midland Metropolitan University Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

Women were mostly treated with kindness, empathy and compassion. We checked that women’s privacy and dignity was respected. We also looked for evidence that every effort was made to take women’s wishes into account and respect their choices, to achieve the best possible outcomes for them. Those women we spoke with said they experienced good care from staff, but friends and family test data for May 2025 showed the trust performed worse than national averages for antenatal care, birth, and postnatal ward care.

At our last assessment, we rated this key question good. At this assessment, the rating remained good. This meant people felt well-supported, cared for and treated with dignity and respect.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Caring.

The service treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Most people we spoke with reported being treated with compassion and felt staff communicated with them in a way they could understand. One patient told us “I felt the staff were as excited as I was after I delivered” and “I had the best team”. Interactions between staff, patients, and families were observed to be kind and considerate.

There was mostly a culture of kindness and mutual respect between colleagues. Staff reported the workplace culture had improved significantly since the previous assessment, with greater respect shown for one another.

There was a small bereavement team who worked Monday to Friday and supported families who experienced bereavement beyond 16 weeks of pregnancy. There were 2 specific rooms on the labour ward which were allocated to bereaved families. They were able to exit the ward through a different route to avoid walking through the labour ward and there were allocated parking areas.

Women were able to give feedback using a QR code link to the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT). Feedback from the FFT highlighted both positive and negative experiences. Results from April to June 2025 showed 86.2% of women had a very good or good experience in birthing areas and 76% did in antenatal areas. Negative themes were around long waits and poor communication and positive comments’ themes included the care being amazing, caring, efficient and lovely and praising the professionalism of the staff.

Managers did not receive feedback from the FFT and were unable to implement improvements based on this. The FFT data for May 2025 showed the trust performed worse than national averages for antenatal care, birth, and postnatal ward care. We did not see an action plan to make improvements.

The wards had a feedback service for women and their families to give feedback about their care. The labour ward used a visitors’ book to gain feedback. Entries included “My midwives were amazing they helped and supported me every step of the way. They made me laugh, they were truly amazing making my first time experience truly memorable”, and “Thank you for the post supported and compassionate labour. All my midwives were an assess to the NHS. You should be proud. You are all approachable, knowledgeable, caring and empathetic. Forever grateful of my care here".

There was an afterbirth clinic to support women emotionally post birth run by the consultant midwife.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. Staff took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Women’s personal, cultural, social, and religious needs were well understood. Women were supported to have their needs met by staff who understood the context of their experiences.

Staff were considerate of women’s relevant protected equality characteristics. There was an equality, diversity and inclusion lead who was working to ensure women of all cultures had a voice by reaching into these communities.

Women’s communications needs were mostly met to enable them to engage in their care. The staff used telephone translators and video translators to help women and their families communicate. Feedback from the visitor’s book on labour ward showed women felt looked after even when they didn’t speak English. For example, “my heartfelt thanks for the wonderful care and support I received at the birth of my fifth child, and my first experience giving birth in the UK. I am very grateful to everyone who supported me before, during and after the birth. A very special thanks to my midwives who were truly amazing! Even though I don’t speak English, they guided me in every way and gave me the confidence I needed. Thank you for your dedication, patience and kindness”. However, we also read themes from feedback which were based around women who were not provided with an interpreter and communications were poor.

The service worked with the Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership to receive feedback about women’s care. They told us they mostly had positive feedback around the midwives. The main theme that needed addressing was communication, particularly by the doctors.

The service signposted birth partners to support organisations if required.

The service mostly promoted people’s independence, so women knew their rights, but they did not always have choice and control over their own care and treatment. Women had limited choice about where they gave birth and the flow in the hospital meant they were often not in the right place for the care they needed. For example, in August 2025, 5 women gave birth before arrival to the labour ward: 1 in the antenatal ward and 4 in triage.

Women could not give birth at home supported by a home birth team. The trust did not offer women a home birth service as they were unable to safely staff this service. Where women wanted to give birth outside recommended care, the consultant midwife ran a birth options service and met with the women to aid them in making an informed decision.

There had been an increase in women who had given birth before arrival (BBA) to hospital. The service audited between July 2024 and January 2025 and found 32 women had given birth before arrival. The equality, diversity and inclusion lead phoned each woman who had given birth before arrival to find more information about this. They found 10 women needed an interpreter and had no access, 4 did not know what to do and 3 had no finance to access the hospital.

Women who underwent induction often had this delayed due to staffing pressures or lack of beds in the labour ward. At the time of the assessment, there was an induction suite on the labour ward, but it was closed due to being unable to safely staff the area. This meant women were cared for in different areas and were not always able to be induced on time as beds were not readily available for them.

Women were supported to have choices within their labour. They were fully informed of all the options available to them including pain relief, and delivery options. However, we received a complaint where a woman felt they were not given pain relief when they asked and felt like an “inconvenience when asking”.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views, and wishes. Women were treated with dignity and respect. Women felt staff were attentive to their needs.

Women told us staff had responded to their needs quickly and efficiently, especially when they had been in pain and discomfort. However, we also received a complaint where a woman felt ignored and the midwives were not understanding of their pain.

People’s needs, views, and wishes were listened to and understood. Feedback was actively sought through various platforms and was used constructively. Positive comments were shared with individual staff members, while areas requiring improvement were addressed through action plans.

The trust provided professional interpreting services to support communication between women, carers, and clinicians when language barriers existed. While trained interpreters were available, translation services remained an area of risk as they were not always used at each appointment.

In the NHS friends and family test for May 2025, the trust performed below the national average in service user feedback for antenatal, birth and postnatal ward care. Postnatal areas received 70% positive feedback, while labour and birth received 77%, and antenatal services 70%. We did not see an action plan for making improvements.

The Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) arranged meetings with women who have used the service to gain their feedback. They told us these were not well attended and needed to reach out more into the communities.

Service users who attended the MNVP meeting in June 2025 highlighted that midwives had signposted them to free antenatal community services in a culturally appropriate setting and they found this very useful.

The service cared about the staff but did not always act in a way that promoted their wellbeing and support staff to deliver person-centred care. We found staff did not always feel supported by senior managers, particularly out of hours and doctors survey results had shown a decline in satisfaction. However, most staff told us their managers really cared about their wellbeing, supported them and they felt valued.

The 2025 General Medical Council trainee survey for obstetrics and gynaecology showed overall satisfaction had deteriorated on previous years results. The main areas the trust scored lower on were for the reporting systems, teamwork and supportive environment. Overall satisfaction had decreased from 78.1 in 2022 to 50 in 2025. However, the trainees scored clinical supervision, induction and feedback within range.

Consultants were not given compensatory rest in line with national guidance for consultants on call. Consultants who were on call regularly had clinics the following day which meant they often did not have compensatory rest.

The National Education and Training Survey for 2024 showed there were several areas where the service was an outlier. The team met with the university to work collaboratively on actions to support improvements. The service introduced a safer learner experience charter at the end of 2024 and were awarded gold awards for student experience early 2025. Students we spoke to felt supported and enjoyed their placement.

Staff raised concerns about the lack of middle grade staff, such as Band 6 Midwives, and they felt a lot of pressure supporting the junior midwives and this impacted on their wellbeing at work. They often could not take breaks. Staff told us they were aware the workforce was going to get more junior as they were employing newly qualified Band 5 Midwives and were apprehensive about the support they would need.

Staff felt appreciated by both their peers but not always by their managers. They felt that some senior managers did not understand the pressures on the wards, and this impacted on the support they received.

Observations across wards reflected effective teamwork, with staff describing a collaborative environment where colleagues helped one another. A few staff told us there had been huge improvements in the culture and they felt listened to. The 2024 NHS staff survey showed the highest rated theme was “we are compassionate and inclusive”. Senior managers told us the staff were “inspirational and aspirational” and were proud of how they had adapted to huge challenges they had faced as a service.

There were support mechanisms for staff experiencing difficulties, with all staff telling us their immediate line managers were supportive and approachable. Regular team meetings were held to share updates and gather staff input, with minutes circulated to ensure transparency. Additional communication channels included a closed social media group and newsletters. Although some staff told us they did not always feel up to date and would welcome more face-to-face communication and updates.

The community midwifery team held a bi-monthly forum which included external speakers and training that staff wanted. At their most recent forum they had held a craft afternoon with food and crafting activities for staff to come together and do and support their wellbeing.

Recognition and appreciation were visibly encouraged through ‘star of the month’ on each ward, where staff nominated each other. We saw messages such as “July star of the month is [staff name]. They are an excellent team player, they are always kind, warm and compassionate.”

There were midwives who had taken on extra responsibilities as Professional Midwifery Advocates (PMA) who supported staff when needed, such as after incidents. As there was no PMA lead, the staff did not have time to fulfil this additional role to its potential. The Head of Midwifery had recognised the need to increase the PMA provision and was working with NHS England on a business case for this. We were told the recruitment and retention midwife was very supportive and had also done mental health training to support staff at work.

There was an online wellbeing application available to all staff where their sickness was logged. The application then sent targeted wellbeing support to the staff member in line with their reasons for sickness.

The trust did a quarterly pulse staff survey. Results from April to July 2025 showed 22% of staff in the maternity service participated with this survey. Results showed 54% of staff looked forward to going to work and 66% were enthusiastic about their job; these scores had improved over the last 12 months.

There was a wellbeing pod on the antenatal ward available for all maternity staff to use. Staff used the pod for 20 minutes to help with relaxation and to reduce stress. Staff told us they used it regularly and found it valuable.