Musgrove Park 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

We looked for evidence that people and communities were always at the centre of how care was planned and delivered. We checked that the health and care needs of people and communities were understood, and they were actively involved in planning care that met these needs. We also looked for evidence that people could access care in ways that met their personal circumstances and protected equality characteristics.

This key question was not included in the previous inspection of maternity services. This key question has been rated requires improvement.

This meant people’s needs were not always 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 evidence showed a good standard. The service made sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they decided, in partnership with people, how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

Women received care tailored to their needs. Women reported staff discussed care plans with them, ensuring these reflected individual needs and preferences. Women had access to their electronic records.

Women were kept informed during labour, feedback included “in theatre before I was put under general anaesthetic I was being kept informed of baby’s heart rate, people’s names and why they were in the room”.

The service had produced a care outside of guidance policy, so staff were able to provide support that empowered women to make decisions about their care with informed decision-making and consent when seeking care outside of national and local recommended guidance.

The service was in the process of ratifying a new policy regarding caesarean birth. This included information and processes where there was no medical indication for a caesarean section, but the woman or pregnant person chose that as their preferred birth.

There was a transitional care pathway for babies who required additional clinical oversight. Transitional care was located on postnatal ward, with care provided to the baby by the neonatal unit and to the mother by the midwives.

Women were supported by bereavement midwives and they offered individualised care to families at a very difficult time. They referred individuals to the maternity bereavement counsellor if required. They were in contact with the family for up to 28 days post birth and either liaised with a charity to offer ongoing support or referred to the family general practitioner if needed.

Most staff communicated with patients so that they understood their care and treatment. Staff enabled patients to give feedback on the service they received and worked closely with maternity and neonatal voices partnership (MNVP). For example, the service used feedback recently from women who had used the triage service, provided by the MNVP. Women felt they were not being told about waiting time expectations. As a result, staff created coloured triage cards where the priority was outlined and explanation of the timeframe when a midwife or doctor review would be required. Feedback had been positive.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. There were some shortfalls in how the service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was not always joined-up, flexible or supportive of choice and continuity.

Efforts were made to provide the same community midwife throughout pregnancy, but staff sickness meant there were challenges in providing this continuity.

Just over half of the doctors were trained in postmortem consent. This meant there was a risk of lower autopsy uptake and reduced parental understanding of cause of death. The service was working to provide dedicated training for doctors.

With the closure of Yeovil maternity unit, the service had liaised with neighbouring trusts to provide choice to women on where to give birth. Staff completed handovers, shared records, and referred women to community midwives on discharge. The trust monitored 1 to 1 care in labour, and it was within the expected standard range.

Community teams understood local health needs and worked with partner agencies to provide joined-up, continuous care.

Women and their families knew how to raise concerns. Staff understood the complaints process, and investigated issues, identified themes, and shared learning to improve the service.

There was an ultrasound department located in antenatal clinic (ultrasound is performed by sonographers and provides a scan of the baby or babies). This meant antenatal staff were able to arrange late or urgent scan appointments easily.

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

The service complied with the Accessible Information Standard and maintained confidentiality of patient records.

Staff provided clear, accessible information on treatments, local services, patient rights, and complaints processes. These were displayed on noticeboards and available in multiple languages.

Signage to the maternity unit was clear, and information was offered in understandable formats.

Interpretation services were available and used confidently by staff. The maternity webpage included practical resources.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always make it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. They did not always involve people in decisions about their care or tell them what had changed as a result.

There was a midwifery led birth reflection service available and themes from these conversations were discussed at the perinatal experience and engagement committee. We reviewed the minutes from the meeting held in January 2026. Some midwifery staff felt they required further training in birth trauma and post-traumatic stress to be able to support birth reflection discussions. It was highlighted some obstetric postnatal reviews were not held due to capacity and this may have an impact on the number of referrals to the birth reflection service. There was no standard operating procedure or guidance to outline what the offer of the service was.

There had been 8 formal complaints about the service between September 2025 and January 2026 and 2 of these had been resolved, 1 was partially upheld and the other upheld. The remaining 6 were still in progress, 1 of which was a complex case.

The service analysed patient experience data. There had been 7 responses to the friends and family test results between January and February 2026. The service was involved in several coproduction projects with the maternity and neonatal voice partnership (MNVP). The chair of the MNVP was a quorate member of meetings (this meant the voice of women was heard at meetings) and shared feedback from women.

An annual assessment took place using the 15 steps framework (this is an NHS England initiative that looks at improving the quality of services by bringing in ‘fresh eyes’ to visit and highlight areas for improvement). The visit included women who had used the service and recommendations had been initiated.

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

The maternity unit at Musgrove was placed on divert once in the last 12 months, in December 2025 as demands on their service meant they could not accommodate any more women. The maternity unit at Yeovil hospital had been closed temporarily since May 2025 due to staffing concerns. The Mary Stanley birth centre in the community was not open for births but was providing antenatal and postnatal community care. This was due to staffing concerns.

Women over 16 weeks pregnant were able to contact the triage unit if they had any concerns about their pregnancy. This was open 24/7 and women could call and speak with maternity staff who would advise them on the action they needed to take. There was access to medical care at the triage unit but at times women had to wait a long time for this care.

A new induction of labour policy (IOL) had been written and was in the final stages of approval. Prioritisation of IOL was managed through senior clinical oversight and discussed on ward rounds and at the daily safety huddle. The review of unit acuity and emerging risks meant clinically‑led prioritisation was under the leadership of the on-call consultant. It was recognised this process was challenged during periods of high acuity and operational pressure. Where the on‑call consultant was unavailable to attend the safety huddle, the flow midwife was contacted to review the discussion and agree priorities. If delays to IOL occurred due to unit acuity or capacity pressures, they were managed through an escalation and review process. A decision to delay was based on clinical priority, a clinical review took place and if the delay was prolonged, capacity at neighbouring units would be explored. Delays were reported to the region daily via the newly launched maternity sitrep. There had been 3 women transferred out for ongoing IOL due to workload between August 2025 and February 2026.

Women were able to access the service. Once booked, they were sent antenatal and scan appointments at the timed intervals. Information on how to contact the triage unit and other health care professionals was provided.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. Staff and leaders did not always actively listen to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes. This meant people’s care was not always tailored in response to this.

Staff received mandatory training in equity and equality. However, we did not see evidence of mandatory training in diversity, inclusion and human rights. At our previous inspection, 26% of midwives had completed equity and personalised care training and at this inspection 68% of midwives had completed this. Therefore, this had improved but was still not at target.

Dashboard data on ethnicity, disability and deprivation among women giving birth to inform service planning was not up to date. Work was ongoing to improve the data and build in more metrics to the dashboard, including outcome datasets according to demographic groups.

The service instigated a diagnostic report which reviewed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within maternity and neonatal services across the trust, covering both Yeovil and Musgrove Park Hospital. This report was dated November 2025. Inequities persisted in experiences and outcomes for women and families from minority ethnic, socioeconomically deprived and disabled backgrounds. Barriers included incomplete demographic data (ethnicity, disability, and language), limited use of equity dashboards and analytics and uneven implementation of continuity of carer for high-inequality cohorts. However, the service had added ethnicity and individual details to all incident review pro-formas. The development aim to improve demographic data on the dashboard was incorporated into the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) element of the service improvement plan.

Staff encouraged women using the service to give their views.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. People 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.

Staff mostly worked in partnership with women regarding decisions about their care and treatment and their future.

Women and their families had access to a bereavement suite if they had a stillbirth, termination for medical reasons or their baby had died following birth. Specially trained midwives supported them and provided information for example, regarding funerals and postmortems if this was required. Leaders told us they planned to make improvements to the bereavement suite. Information for women following the loss of their baby was available on their website.