The Royal Bournemouth Hospital

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

This means we looked for evidence that the service involved women and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This is the first assessment for maternity services since the move of services to The Royal Bournemouth Hospital. This key question has been rated as good. This meant women were supported and treated with dignity and respect, and involved partners in their care.

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.

We scored the service as 3. The service made sure women were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they decided, in partnership with women, how to respond to any relevant changes in women’s needs.

Women’s notes were comprehensive and there were no concerns regarding documentation. Women’s records showed individualised care was provided, such as for those women who had complex care needs or whose pregnancy was high risk.

However, staff told us during the assessment, and we saw incidents of there being a delay in staff completing documentation, due to not having sufficient time to complete during their shift.

Women felt involved in planning and making decisions about their care which was responsive to their needs. They reported staff worked together and supported them to plan their care and the birth of their baby.

Patient First improvement huddles were held across maternity. Multi-disciplinary teams meet weekly to improve patient care and staff and patient experience. For example, the postnatal team had implemented streamlining work through Patient First. The team worked closely with the pharmacy team to reduce delays in obtaining medications to take home, to enable a quicker discharge for women.

We scored the service as 3. The service treated women as individuals and made sure women’s care, support and treatment met women’s needs and preferences. They took account of women’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture, unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Women’s individual needs and preferences were understood, and this was reflected in the care, treatment and support they received during their pregnancy and birthing journey.

Emotional support and advice to women was identified through talking to women during the assessment and from reviewing feedback, thank-you emails and letters received from women.

The friends and family feedback score for August 2025 showed 112 responses from women and 86.6% of feedback was positive. Feedback such as,” Fantastic support from lovely, compassionate, knowledgeable midwives” and “Staff were amazing throughout my planned c-section and birth. My baby required some help and was swiftly transferred to NICU and subsequently referred to a neighbouring hospital trust. Everyone was so attentive and caring during such a difficult time”.

We scored the service as 3. The service promoted women’s independence, so women’s knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

The service engaged with the maternity and neonatal voice partnership (MNVP) to gain feedback of maternity services from women. For example, feedback from women and their families said, “I felt calm and in control in the midwife’s presence, the whole birth experience was a positive one with luckily no real complications” and “Perfect experience for a first-time mum. felt supported but also in control”.

Women were supported to make decisions throughout their pregnancy journey. The service and MNVP completed outreach work with women to talk about their experiences of home births.

Consultant midwives supported women to make birth choices. Women’s wishes were respected and listened to when developing birth plans.

Women told us they felt their voices were heard and women received an informed choice.

Staff followed the trust policy to keep care and treatment confidential. We observed staff handovers, which were held away from where women or their families could hear discussions.

We scored the service as 3. The service listened to and understood women’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to women’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Maternity staff were supportive and listened to women’s needs. The service offered a birth reflections service, which gave women and their families the opportunity to talk about their personal birth experiences.

The maternity unit was designed to support women and their families throughout the birthing journey. For example, all women could have individual rooms with ensuite facilities. There were pull-down beds and adaptable chairs to enable partners to stay.

We scored the service as 2. The service did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

Staff told us they felt they were not always listened to when raising concerns, especially since the move of maternity services to The Royal Bournemouth Hospital. We had received a number of whistle blower concerns in relation to insufficient staffing, call bells not working, and the lack of privacy and dignity for women coming back from theatre.

Staff felt there was a disconnect between managers and staff working clinically to the senior leadership team. Although senior leadership had introduced listening events and there was the freedom to speak up guardian (FTSUG), staff told us they did not feel confident their concerns were listened to around not having enough staff to manage the higher acuity of women and the footprint of the service. For example, staff told us they had raised concerns via email to senior leaders but had not received a response or acknowledgement.

Staff told us they were “tired and burnt out” and felt senior leaders did not listen to their concerns. There were ineffective resources and facilities for safe working, such as staff taking regular breaks. Band 6 and band 7 staff told us they did not take breaks as it “did not feel safe to do so”. The service emailed staff regarding the importance of taking breaks and had introduced a poster promoting staff well-being and encouraging breaks. There was a QR code for staff to anonymously report any time breaks were not taken. However, staff told us they didn’t take breaks due to concerns around appropriate staffing and skill mix and they only sometimes logged if breaks were missed.

The service had a higher than national average sickness rate of 9.13% instead of the target rate of 3% for maternity staff. Senior leaders told us a high proportion of sickness was due to anxiety and stress. Senior leaders told us there was an established review of patient acuity in the unit daily. Leaders reported areas with the greatest acuity had the correct staffing resource. However, shift rotas and the daily acuity sheets did not support adequate staffing.

The General Medical Council (GMC) survey 2025 showed the maternity and neonatal team were consistently providing good training and a supportive environment for obstetric teams to work within. This was an improvement on the previous survey, with medical staff having access to training resources, longer handover times and regular appraisals. Medical staff we spoke to were happy and felt well supported within the team.

The last maternity staff survey was in 2024. At the time of the inspection the service was promoting staff to complete the 2025 survey. The leadership team had separated the staff survey for the antenatal unit and maternity triage so the voice of the team could be heard.