The Royal Bournemouth Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

This means we looked for evidence that the service met women’s needs.

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 needs were met through good organisation and delivery.

We have not awarded this service a score for Responsive.

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

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 understood the diverse health and care needs of women and their local communities, so care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity.

The trust moved maternity services to the BEACH building at The Royal Bournemouth Hospital at the end of March 2025 with the aim to improve maternity and neonatal services for women and children. The move of maternity services was part of a broader trust strategy to consolidate emergency services at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital which was designed to reduce patient transfers between hospitals, alleviate pressure on ambulance services, and improve care outcomes for maternity.

Senior leaders planned and organised maternity services with the maternity and neonatal voice partnership (MNVP), women using maternity services and staff, so that the service could meet the needs of the local population. The service worked with the local maternity and neonatal systems (LMNS) and the MNVP to listen to women’s voices about their maternity experiences to improve services. The service was reported to work well with the MNVP and was keen to listen and use this feedback.

Consultant midwives completed training to enable community midwifery teams to learn and understand about birth choices, home births and out-of-guidance care. Out-of-guidance care refers to providing care to women outside of the standard maternity care pathways. For example, unassisted births, homebirths or other non-standard options. This provided women with an informed choice, and they felt supported around their decision on where to give birth to their baby.

Staff could access emergency mental health support 24 hours a day, 7-days a week for women with mental health problems and learning disabilities. The service had systems and specialist staff to help care for women in need of additional support or specialist intervention. For example, they had mental health midwives and specialist bereavement midwives.

There had been an increase in women choosing to have a planned caesarean birth. The service looked at capacity within theatres to accommodate this by having all day lists for 2 out of the 5 days of elective caesarean section lists. There was ongoing work around a long-term solution, for which the service was planning to submit a business plan.

Consultants led twice-daily ward rounds- including weekends- on all wards, and women were reviewed by consultants depending on the care pathway they were on. Staff had round-the-clock access to support from doctors and other disciplines, including mental health services and diagnostic tests.

We scored the service as 3. The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

Women had access to interpreting services so they could understand and make decisions about their care. Women confirmed they had been provided detailed information in a way they could understand. This included leaflets in multiple languages, videos and being signposted to local charity websites.

Antenatal education on birth options and realistic expectations was provided to women and their partners. The aim of the antenatal education was to reduce fear, anxiety and postnatal depression and to improve birth experiences and wellbeing.

We scored the service as 3. The service made it easy for women to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. They involved women in decisions about their care and told them what had changed as a result.

The service developed a family support liaison to provide pastoral care to women and their families who may have been impacted by the move of maternity services to The Royal Bournemouth Hospital. The family support liaison listened to concerns raised by women and escalated these to the maternity team.

The service displayed information about how to raise a concern and give feedback on care or experience of the service in patient areas. Leaders told us they shared feedback from women with staff and the trust board as part of the patient story.

Complaints were shared in the monthly safety champions report and presented at the maternity and neonatal clinical leaders meeting and maternity and neonatal patient safety meeting.

From March 2025 to present, the service had received 17 complaints, although 8 of those complaints were in relation to the previous maternity location. Maternity, neonatal, voices, partnership (MNVP) reviewed the trust complaints response and feedback on the quality of the response.

The maternity and neonatal safety board report between April to June 2025 included a section on complaints. The main themes within complaints were a lack of communication and compassion.

Ward managers shared learning from complaints at the local team meetings and through the monthly risky business poster to update maternity staff.

We scored the service as 2. The service did not always make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

Women attending the service for an induction of labour (IOL) were given an initial date for admission to start the induction process. Women were advised that this date may change based on acuity and the prioritisation according to clinical risk. There were 38 delays in IOL, ranging from 2 to 109 hours in June 2025. In July 2025 there was 54 delays ranging from 4 to 100 hours and in August 2025, there were 152 women booked for an IOL and 48 of those women experienced delays ranging between 4 to 68 hours. One woman was transferred out to a local neighbouring trust due to delays. Delays in IOL’s could potentially lead to a higher chance of women requiring intervention during birth and unplanned caesarean sections.

Women had equal access to care, treatment, and support. The service worked with local maternity and neonatal systems (LMNS) and maternity and neonatal voice partnership (MNVP) to identify barriers to women accessing maternity care and discuss improvements. The MNVP did this by providing a survey to women using maternity services, talking to women at baby groups and through accessing social media.

From April 2025 to September 2025 there were 4 occasions where diversion was needed due to capacity having been reached within the unit, with safe transfer of women arranged to supporting units to maintain women’s safety.

We scored the service as 3. Staff and leaders actively listened to information about women who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes, and tailored their care, support and treatment in response to this.

Staff and leaders listened to information about women who were most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and adapted care accordingly. Continuity of care was supported through teams such as Oasis safeguarding team and Meadow continuity team.

To improve women’s experiences of birth, the service introduced birth education classes to reduce trauma, fear, anxiety and postnatal depression, and to improve birth experiences and wellbeing.

The service worked with families and the MNVP to access focus groups to provide information around birth education. Anaesthetics, fetal monitoring leads and ward leads helped design the online classes and resources. Women’s pregnancy, birthing decisions and what mattered to them were recorded through personalised care plans which were shared where relevant. Women attended birth option clinics to discuss their birth choices. When changes needed to be made to a birth plan due to clinical reasons, staff communicated and managed this openly and sensitively.

We scored the service as 3. Women were supported to plan for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future, including at the end of their life.

Women could get information and advice that was accurate, up to date, and provided in a way they could understand to plan for their birth. The service supported women to make informed choices about their care. This was achieved through health promotion information, antenatal classes, appointments with midwives, birth plan documents, information leaflets, and resources available on the maternity page of the trust’s website.

Women were clear about discharge plans and who to contact with any concerns. Discharge summaries were shared electronically with health visitors and GPs and follow up arrangements were made prior to discharge.