St Mary's 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 is the first assessment for this key question. This key question has been rated Good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as 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 evidence showed a good standard. The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Staff attitudes and behaviours when interacting with patients showed that they were discreet, respectful and responsive, providing patients with help, emotional support and advice at the time they needed it.

We saw that staff supported patients to understand and manage their care. Staff took time to interact with women and those close to them in a respectful and considerate way. Women and their families we spoke with, said staff treated them well and with kindness.

In the entrance to the service there were a display boards with photos of all staff and their job role to support women to know the team that would be caring for them. We saw displays of thank you cards from patients who praised the staff for their compassionate and empathetic care. We saw thoughtful displays of baby clothes and blankets available through small donations.

Staff understood and respected the individual needs, including their personal, cultural, social and religious needs of each woman. They showed understanding and a non-judgmental attitude when caring for or discussing women with mental health needs. Specialist continuity teams identified women who needed their service to ensure they had the right support in place and only had to tell their story once.

Staff maintained the confidentiality of information about patients. All clinics rooms had curtains in place to protect dignity during examinations. Patient records were stored digitally and staff followed policy to keep women’s care and treatment confidential.

The service worked closely and had positive relationships with the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices partnership (MNVP). The MNVP engaged regularly with senior leaders to ensure voices of women were heard and feedback was passed on.

The trust had a comprehensive 7-day bereavement service to make sure there was consistent support for women and their families experiencing pregnancy loss or neonatal death. Women and their families could access the bereavement team for as long as they required support and the team supported women during any future pregnancies.

Feedback from women and their families was gained through the friends and family test (FFT) and the birth stories service. At trust level there was positive feedback from the women and their families who used their services. The trust did not collect location specific feedback.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met women’s needs and preferences. They took account of women’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and 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. The service provided a post discharge contraceptive clinic to minimise women needing to access multiple services, this supported a woman’s right to access contraception easily and without restriction.

Staff were understanding and had a non-judgmental attitude when caring for or discussing women with mental health needs. We saw staff give emotional support and advice to women and women told us they felt supported during their pregnancy and birth. The CQC maternity survey showed the service were in line with the national average for taking women’s personal circumstances into account when giving advice and for staff asking women about their mental health.

Women were supported throughout their maternity journey and were able to access advice and care when needed. Women told us, staff listened and made themselves available throughout the unit.

Maternity and neonatal voice partnership (MNVP) used various methods to engage with women using maternity services. The health inequalities lead for the trust worked closely with women and the MNVP to provide equitable access to maternity services.

Parents and families who were observing religious fasting were advised to speak to staff about extended visiting times. This helped families celebrate the birth of a child within the context of their faith and ensured the mother did not miss out on vital emotional and social support.

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

Maternity staff were supportive and responded to women’s needs. Women fed back to the trust that they felt safe throughout their pregnancy and birthing journey.

The service offered a birth reflections service, which gave women and their families the opportunity to talk about their personal birth experiences. Birth reflections was an opportunity to understand why certain decisions were made and to understand what happened during their birth.

The MNVP worked against a work plan to identify what women want within maternity services, feedback and improvement. The MNVP completed a 15 steps review at St Marys in 2023, Queen Alexandra maternity services in 2024, Queen Alexandra neonatal services in 2025 and had a review planned at Gosport War Memorial Hospital (Blake Maternity Centre) in November 2026. Senior leaders told us that learning was shared across all sites. The 15 steps review evaluated how a woman feels and sees within the first 15 steps of arrival into the maternity unit. Women were supported to make decisions throughout their pregnancy journey.

Recommendations and actions identified through the review were incorporated into the safety improvement plan and were monitored through the enhanced support and oversight group. The service reported this assurance process meant women’s voices were at the forefront of the quality and safety developments.

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

Staff identified and responded to changing risks to women. We saw that in care records women had risks assessments completed throughout their pregnancy to ensure any risks could be identified and considered. We saw evidence of women being referred to supportive services if this was indicated.

Staff understood the emotional and social impact that a person’s care, treatment or condition had on their wellbeing and on those close to them. The service had identified the need to provide personal care items to vulnerable women who may be housed in temporary accommodation. We saw these contained thoughtful items that would be greatly appreciated.

Staff supported women who became distressed in an open environment and helped them maintain their privacy and dignity. Throughout the service all rooms had spaces that women could access should they require a private space.

The service used HOPE (hold on, pain eases) boxes to support women where the local authority was planning a separation at birth. Created with women with lived experience, the boxes, one for the mother and one for the baby, contained carefully chosen items intended to provide comfort, reduce trauma, and offer support as they navigate the child protection and family justice systems. HOPE boxes included blankets, teddy and memory cards.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. 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.

The trust provided us with NHS trust staff survey results, but the results did not identify the results for maternity services. The service told us there had been an overall improvement from the previous staff survey for maternity staff but there was no data to support this.

Staff within all maternity services told us they felt tired and burnt out due to high acuity and low staffing due to sickness. Staff told us they sometimes felt detached from the main hospital site

However, staff felt local leaders cared about their wellbeing, supported them and felt valued. In staff areas there were notice boards containing personal feedback from patients singling out members of staff who has cared for them.

Staff had access to support for their own physical and emotional health needs through an occupational health service. Formal support was offered to staff involved in cases that may cause distress. There were Critical incident stress management (CISM) and Professional Midwifery Advocates (PMA) teams in place, these provided debriefs in both maternity and neonatal services. CISM is a support framework used in maternity services to help staff manage the emotional impact of traumatic or difficult events.