Updated
15 August 2025
Liverpool Women’s Hospital is part of the Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust and specialises in the health of women, babies, and their families. It is one of only two specialist trusts in the UK and the largest women’s hospital in Europe. As a tertiary centre the hospital provides care for a significant proportion of people with high levels of complexity and clinical risk, as well as serving a local population with significant deprivation. The hospital teams deliver around 8,000 babies each year.
The maternity team cares for women and their babies from conception to birth supported by the neonatal team who provide around the clock care for premature and new-born babies needing specialist care. The trust also delivers neonatal, end of life care, outpatients, gynaecology, fertility and termination of pregnancy services but these were not included in this inspection.
The hospital became part of the University Hospitals of Liverpool Group in November 2024.
We commenced a responsive assessment of the maternity services at Liverpool Women’s Hospital on 11 March 2025 because we received whistle blower concerns relating to the culture and leadership within the service, and to re-rate the maternity services following an inadequate rating in safe from January 2023. We carried out an unannounced inspection during 29 April 2025 to 1 May 2025.
Our assessment only looked at the maternity services at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Our findings for maternity services can be found in the services section of this report.
The overall location rating for Liverpool Women’s Hospital remains unchanged following our assessment of the maternity services. We rated Liverpool Women’s Hospital as good.
Updated
11 March 2025
The maternity services at Liverpool Women's Hospital include the maternity assessment unit (MAU), a 52 bedded inpatient maternity base (mat base) ward, a midwifery led unit (MLU) and delivery and induction of labour suites. The hospital teams deliver around 8,000 babies each year.
We carried out a focused inspection of maternity services during January and February 2024, as part of the CQC national maternity inspection programme which looked only at the safe and well led questions. Following the inspection, we issued a warning notice requiring the trust to make significant improvements. We also carried out a focused inspection to follow up the warning notice during January 2024. We found the service complied with the requirements of the warning notice issued in February 2023 but identified additional regulatory breaches relating to safe care and treatment (Regulation 12), good governance (Regulation 17) and staffing (Regulation 18).
We commenced a responsive assessment of the maternity services at Liverpool Women's Hospital on 11 March 2025 because we received whistle blower concerns relating to the culture and leadership within the service, and to re-rate the maternity services following an inadequate rating in safe from January 2023.
We carried out an unannounced inspection from 29 April 2025 to 1 May 2025. During the inspection, we spoke with 10 people who used the service and looked at 13 care records. We also spoke with staff, leaders and service partners and looked at policies and other documents relating to the service.
Our overall rating for maternity services improved. We rated it as good.
The service had enough suitably trained staff to care for people and keep them safe. Staff protected people from abuse and managed incidents and medicines well. Staff assessed people's risks and health needs, gained their consent and worked well together as a team. Care and treatment was centred around people who used the service and their needs.
The service had made improvements to processes for managing deteriorating health and staff leadership on the maternity base ward following our previous inspection in January 2024.
Staff treated people with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity and took account of their individual needs and choices.
Most people experienced positive outcomes following their care and treatment and could access the service when they needed it, in a way that promoted equality and protected their rights.
Leaders ran services well. There were clear and effective governance, management and accountability arrangements. Leaders promoted a positive work culture based on equality, diversity and inclusion. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. Leaders engaged well with partners and the community to plan and manage services.
Updated
22 May 2015
Patients who were considered to be in the last year of life were cared for in one of two specialist end of life suites on wards within the hospital (whenever possible). The Mulberry and Orchid suites were part of gynaecology ward 1 and provided patients with a private and calm environment where they could be cared for in an appropriate and tranquil setting. Patients and those close to them valued the environment and some patients had chosen the suites as their preferred place to die. The specialist palliative care team responded to the needs of patients in a timely way and were accessible to ward staff for support, advice and mentoring. There was good multidisciplinary working for the benefit of patients. Staff participated in regional and national networks to support service development and improvement. Staff were caring and compassionate and there was evidence of individualised, person-centred care. Processes for rapid discharge were in place to allow patients to return quickly to their preferred place of care. However, we did not see robust evidence of advanced care planning and ‘do not attempt cardio-pulmonary resuscitation’ (DNACPR) decisions were not always made in a timely way so that patients could be involved in the decision making.
Updated
22 April 2020
Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as good because:
The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills and understood how to protect patients from abuse. They controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records. They managed the prescribing and administration of medicines well. The hospital managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them. The service continually monitored safety information and used it to improve the service.
Staff provided good care and treatment, used special feeding and hydration techniques where necessary, and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the services and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients and their families, advised and supported them to make decisions about their care.
Staff always treated patients and their families with compassion and kindness and feedback from parents was that they went the extra mile and completely involved them in their care. They provided emotional support to minimise the distress of patients and their families recognising the importance of their wellbeing. We heard examples of how they went the extra mile to support people and provide memories for bereaved families.
The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, they took account of patients’, parents and their families individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the hospital when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment.
Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care and had a vision and strategy that supported this. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The hospital engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to continually improving services.
However;
We found an inconsistent approach to the daily checks of resuscitation equipment and emergency equipment was not stored in tamper evident trolleys. Staff could not easily identify if equipment or sundries were missing.
Key services were not always available seven days a week to support timely care for children, young people and their families.
There was not a robust governance process in place for monitoring adherence to the checks of emergency equipment and medication.
The service did not consistently use systems and processes to safely store medicines. We found out of date emergency medicines in the emergency medicines kit on the low dependency unit.
We issued the trust with a warning notice which asked them to make improvements in medicines management by 10 January 2020. This was reviewed during our inspection in January 2020 and we will continue to monitor trust progress in relation to this.
Outpatients and diagnostic imaging
Updated
22 May 2015
There was good practice in the outpatient and diagnostic imaging departments to promote the safety of patients and staff. There was a clear process for reporting and investigating incidents. Learning from incidents was shared and there were examples of changes in practice in response to incidents. Cleanliness and hygiene in the department were of a good standard. Regular hand hygiene audits showed an appropriate level of compliance. Patient records were generally available for clinics although there were occasions when they were not. It was not possible to ascertain how widespread the issue was because incidents that related to the availability of patients’ notes were not reported consistently and the availability of notes was not audited. Staff and managers could not tell us the percentage of notes that were unavailable. The issue was recorded on the risk register a week before the inspection started. Staff were aware of the policies and procedures to protect and safeguard children and adults, and training statistics showed that most staff had completed training in safeguarding for both children and adults. Other mandatory training courses were well attended and staff were positive about the training provided. They had also been trained in managing major incidents. Staffing was generally good; however, there were occasions when the foetal medicine unit was understaffed and managers were looking at ways to resolve this. The diagnostic imaging department used a private provider for sonography to address staff shortages. There was no evidence at the time of our inspection that this was having an impact on patient safety.
Updated
22 May 2015
There were robust systems for the reporting of incidents and the management of risk within the Bedford Centre. The centre was visibly clean, medicines were safely stored and well managed, and the standard of record keeping was good. There were sufficient well-trained nurses to provide safe and effective care.
The multi-disciplinary team worked well together, using national guidelines to treat patients. Access to information was good and there were robust processes in place to gain consent.
Services were delivered by caring and compassionate staff who treated patients with dignity and respect. Care and treatment was planned and delivered in a way that took into account the wishes of the patient.
Access to treatment, advice and information was good both during procedures and after discharge. Complaints were well managed. The trust’s vision and values for the organisation had been well communicated to staff.
There was a ‘no blame’ culture
that gave staff confidence to report incidents and ‘near misses’.
We saw individual members of medical and nursing staff who displayed good leadership skills and were positive role models for staff generally.