- NHS hospital
Princess Royal Hospital
Assessment report published 29 July 2026
Ratings - Maternity
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 19 November 2025 and 15 December 2025
Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath provides a range of NHS hospital services to women living in and surrounding area of Haywards Heath and West Sussex. The assessment looked at maternity services.
The trust has obstetric led maternity units at Princess Royal hospital in East Sussex, Worthing Hospital, St Richards Hospital in West Sussex and the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton.
There was also a home birth service provided by community teams across all four sites.
Around 9,000 babies are born in the trust each year. Within Princess Royal Hospital between October 2024 to November 2025 there were 2,174 births at the hospital.
In February 2022, the trust entered the Maternity Safety Support Programme (MSSP). The MSSP is a national support programme provided by NHS England to maternity services where significant concerns have been identified regarding the safety and quality of services.
There was a maternity improvement plan which was monitored via the twice monthly Maternity Improvement Group. The trust was on track to move into the sustainability phase of the MSSP programme mid-2025, and to exit the programme late-2025. However, this was delayed due to the trust being named as one of the trusts within the rapid national investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services.
Maternity services were rated as requires improvement following the assessment.
At our last assessment the overall rating for maternity services was requires improvement.
The service was previously in breach of legal regulation 18: staffing. Following this inspection the service remains in breach of this regulation. The service did not have enough staff to keep women safe. During this inspection, staff told us they felt tired and burnt-out due to workforce pressures and the demands of the service. Shifts felt increasingly overstretched and sickness rates were high with 8% midwifery sickness, we were told this was mostly due to staff stress.
We also found a breach of regulation 12: safe care and treatment, we found women did not receive a midwifery review within 15 minutes of arrival within the maternity care centre and women did not receive a medical review within a timely manner. The service had 1 obstetric theatre which was frequently reported to be closed due to ongoing equipment failures and issues with the heating and ventilation. There were gaps identified in the medicines record keeping books where the anaesthetic team had not signed to identify drugs which had been administered to women in theatre.
There was a breach of regulation 17: good governance due to the service not having an audit schedule and staff did not routinely complete local audits. Staff did not have access to up-to-date policies and guidance due to several being outside of the review date.
However, policies and guidance did reflect the current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance. Staff knew what incidents to report. They raised concerns and reported incidents and near misses in line with the trust policy.
Staff told us they worked well as a team and there was a good culture between midwives and obstetricians. Staff considered patients’ individual needs, circumstances, ongoing care arrangements and expected outcomes during handovers and ward round meetings.
Leaders worked with the Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to contribute to decisions about care in maternity services. Meeting minutes showed current work being undertaken between the trust and the local MNVP.
We refer to women in this report, but we recognise that some transgender men, non-binary women and women with variations in sex characteristics or who are intersex may also use services and experience some of the same issues.
We have requested an action plan, this will be requested upon publication of the final report.
People's experience of this service
We spoke to 7 women during the assessment and 3 partners who were positive about the service. Information from the NHS Maternity survey benchmarking report showed that women were mostly positive about their birthing experience at Princess Royal Hospital. Many felt they were treated with dignity and respect throughout their care.
Women told us they felt safe, well supported and cared for by both the midwifery and medical teams. Risks were explained by staff, and they felt they were involved in decision making.
Staff were described as professional, understanding and kind. Women had access to contribute and feedback about their experiences through the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) who also feedback to the trust regularly.