The Royal Bournemouth Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

This means we looked for evidence that women’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

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’s outcomes were consistently good, and women’s feedback confirmed this.

We have not awarded this service a score for Effective.

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

We scored the service as 3. The service made sure women’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

Staff were able to describe how they assessed and reviewed women’s needs from the antenatal to postnatal period to provide holistic support. However, staff felt this was not always possible due to the ongoing demands within the service and low staffing. For example, there were incidences reported of where women who had experienced baby loss did not have one to one care postnatally.

During the assessment we saw positive examples of person-centred care. Women were given information and advice about their health, prenatal and postnatal care. They told us during the assessment that they felt well supported by the multi-disciplinary team and felt they were involved in the assessment of their needs.

The maternity team used the National Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT) to review perinatal deaths and reported their findings via the maternity and neonatal safety report to the quality committee. Quarterly PMRT reports were also reviewed at the Safety Champions meetings.

As part of the daily situational, background, assessment and recommendation (SBAR) handover staff reviewed any language barriers for women so they could be supported.

The Meadow team were a group of midwives who provided consistent care for women from the global majority throughout their pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period. Between May 2025 to August 2025 the team had provided continuous care to 90 women. Midwives in Meadow team ensured women understood the care they were receiving and were supportive to individual needs and circumstances. Meadow team had consistently provided 88% continuity for antenatal care for women and 98% continuity for postnatal care.

We scored the service as 3. The service planned and delivered women’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

Staff followed up-to-date policies to plan and deliver high quality care according to evidence-based practice and national guidance. These included National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). Staff had access to guidelines on the trust’s intranet system.

Polices and guidelines were updated by the multi-disciplinary team and once a policy was reviewed, it was circulated across all staff within the maternity and neonatal department for a consultation period of four weeks.

The service reported maternity had 180 guidelines, of which 12 were out of date. We found not all guidance had been updated to incorporate the new maternity unit building. For example, during the assessment, the newborn security policy was last reviewed in July 2024, and the escalation policy was reviewed in December 2024. Following the assessment, the trust completed and ratified the guidance in September 2025.

Guidelines were presented at the maternity and neonatal governance and education meeting, where all policies which had been amended or written were discussed and ratified.

Policies were uploaded to the trust intranet and communication shared with all staff via the monthly safety champions report with an update to staff and the quality committee on all polices.

Staff followed guidance on the management of cardiotocography (CTG) traces, and GAP/GROWTH Assessment Protocol (GAP) to monitor fetal growth. CTG cases were reviewed at the weekly multidisciplinary (MDT) training sessions and during investigations of reported incidents.

We scored the service as 3. The service worked well across teams and services to support women. They made sure women only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when women moved between different services.

Staff told us they worked well as a team and there was a good culture between midwives and obstetricians. However, all staff we spoke to told us there was a disconnect between staff and senior management.

Staff considered patients’ individual needs, circumstances, ongoing care arrangements, and expected outcomes during handovers and ward round meetings. Staff reported there were positive collaborative working relationships between maternity and obstetric teams. There was a multidisciplinary team for all women who used the service where there were safeguarding concerns, long term conditions, mental health needs or other additional needs.

During midwifery safety huddles we observed active discussions around women with complex care who required support to have the birthing experience they wanted. The service had worked with other agencies to develop a multi-agency birth plan.

The service worked collaboratively with system partners, such as the Integrated Care Board (ICB), other maternity services within their Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS) and maternity improvement advisors. We saw evidence of regular meetings with the LMNS and the trust with agreed actions to improve services.

The maternity service worked with the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to contribute to decisions about care and make improvements across the maternity service. The MNVP told us they had easy access to the senior leadership team to escalate any concerns promptly. They reported they were involved in completing 15 steps walk around the new maternity unit prior to the move and they felt listened to by the service. 15 steps was a review of the maternity services through the eyes of women and their families.

Women could access information and advice about their health, care and support from the hospital maternity pages on the internet, printed leaflets and from staff during their appointments.

We scored the service as 3. The service supported women to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. The service supported women to live healthier lives and where possible, reduced their future need for care and support.

The service supported women on managing their health by providing information throughout maternity clinical areas and on the maternity website. There was access to mental health provision for pregnant women and mothers and access to specialist clinics including diabetes. Women were asked about their smoking status when booking an appointment, and all women were offered carbon monoxide screening.

Women could access online antenatal videos, such as health pregnancy, birth preparation and infant feeding. This was accessed through the service as part of the local maternity and neonatal systems (LMNS).

Staff completed training on how to support women and their families on promoting the importance of stopping smoking in pregnancy. The service was working collaboratively with the LMNS to create a smoking passport to support staff to ascertain if women were engaging in smoking cessation services.

The maternity neonatal voices partnership (MNVP) attended the monthly patient experience meetings and supported by contributing to an action plan.

The service was working towards accreditation for the United Nations Children’s fund (UNICEK) UK baby friendly initiative. The service was in the process of formulating breast feeding friendly initiative training to continue to deliver support to women and improve the culture around feeding their baby.

We scored the service as 2. The service did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They did not always ensure that outcomes were positive and consistent, or that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

In the months prior to the assessment the service had seen a deterioration in post partum haemorrhage (PPH) and 3rd and 4th degree tears. Ongoing work was needed to improve outcomes for women.

The service had completed quality improvement projects to improve the standards of care following a review of outcomes. The service had recently completed a quality improvement project on PPH due to the higher incidence rate of PPH cases. Data for August 2025 showed there were 16 incidences of PPH above 1500mls and 6 women lost 30% of their circulating blood volume with 1 case of major obstetric haemorrhage (MOH) of blood loss of 3.1L following a forceps delivery in the labour room, with transfer to theatre for completion of perineal repair and management of MOH. All incidences of PPH continued to have a "deep dive" review by a consultant midwife to identify any themes or learning.

Between July 2025 and August 2025, there was a significant increase in the levels of 3rd and 4th degree tears rise in women. The service reported that each case was reviewed for learning. Potential themes found were student deliveries and further education was given to all 3rd year students. Staff were reminded to implement the OASI bundle and to work with student midwives regarding correct technique, optimising maternal position and to make sure there was clear documentation. The Oasi bundle refers to interventions designed to improve outcomes for women experiencing obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASI).

We saw daily huddles and multi-disciplinary handovers to support safe transition of care between teams during shift changes. Potential and planned discharges were also supported through daily meetings, with referrals made prior to discharge.

The service had multidisciplinary working groups to provide better outcomes for women. For example, there was an improving post-birth contraception working group. A patient leaflet was currently in development in collaboration with the patient information group.

A project on improving rates for delayed cord clamping was in place for preterm babies. The group involved were made of maternity, neonatal and theatre teams.

The service used a live dashboard to measure performance which was accessible to senior leaders. Leaders monitored outcomes on the maternity scorecard, which provided statistical information monthly. When these statistical figures were outside national standards, these were discussed at risk meetings. The director of midwifery (DOM) reviewed and analysed monthly data to ascertain where there was a need to focus and improve.

The trust used the patient first scorecard. The scorecard reflected on maternity services’ core priorities against performance by receiving direct feedback from women, their families and midwives. This empowered staff to undertake continuous improvement of services. The patient first scorecard for August 2025 showed there was an improvement to the total turn around for complaints, with complaints being closed within 38 days for July and August 2025, compared to 69 days when the service first moved to the BEACH building.

The perinatal surveillance dashboard for August 2025 showed there had been an improvement in women being booked at 10 weeks, with 79% of women being booked. This was higher than the national target of 65%. However, the areas where the service were above the national target were the high numbers of staff sickness, 3rd and 4th degree tears and the readmission of babies.

We scored the service as 3. The service told women about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment.

There were up-to-date policies and procedures around consent, which were accessible to staff through the trust’s intranet site.

Staff understood how and when to assess whether a woman had the capacity to make decisions about their care. Staff gained consent from women for their care and treatment in line with legislation and guidance and clearly recorded consent in the woman's records.

During our inspection, we observed a consent form being completed appropriately and we observed staff explaining risks to women before completing a procedure. On review of women’s records, we found completed consent forms for caesarean sections as well as when gaining verbal consent when completing care.