- NHS hospital
Croydon University Hospital
Assessment report published 10 April 2026
Ratings - Maternity
Our view of the service
Croydon University Hospital is a large district general hospital in Thornton Heath in South London and part of Croydon Health Services NHS Trust. Croydon Health Services NHS Trust has a large, diverse workforce and a dedicated team of volunteers. It has over 500 beds and offers a range of inpatient and outpatient services. It provides a comprehensive range of general medical and surgical services, intensive care, children’s services, Emergency Department (ED) and maternity care for approximately 1,506,791 people living in Croydon and the South West London area. The population has a high level of deprivation compared to the England average and has the youngest population of any London borough.
Croydon Health Services is the primary provider of maternity care for local women. From September 2024 to August 2025, there were 3190 babies born at Croydon University Hospital. The hospital's maternity services offer a wide range of specialised care, including consultant-led care, midwifery led care, an antenatal clinic, a maternity day assessment unit (MDAU), a triage unit, antenatal and postnatal inpatient wards and bereavement services.
We last inspected maternity services at Croydon University Hospital 6 to 7 December 2022, as part of the CQC national maternity inspection programme and looked at the safe and well-led domains. Following the December 2022 inspection, we rated the service good overall, and safe and well-led were rated good.
We conducted this short notice focused assessment on 30 September and 1 October 2025 to follow up on concerns received. As this was a focused assessment, we did not assess the effective and responsive domains. We also did not assess all the quality statements in the well-led domain.
We spoke with multidisciplinary staff on the maternity team, this included maternity assistants, midwives, junior doctors, registrars, consultant obstetricians and anaesthetists, student midwives, specialist midwives, consultant midwives, safeguarding midwives, matrons, safety champions and the quadrumvirate. We received feedback from 9 women and their loved ones who had used the maternity service.
We rated the service as requires improvement due to new breaches of safe care and treatment, leadership and good governance. This was in relation to triage, premises, documentation and risk assessments and equipment. Not all staff were up to date with appraisals, mandatory and maternity specific training modules. However, medicines were stored securely and staff maintained women’s confidentiality. Staff treated women and their loved ones with respect, compassion and dignity.
Following our assessment, we issued a warning notice under section 29A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 on the registration of maternity services at Croydon University Hospital.
We refer to women in this report but we recognise that some transgender men, non-binary women and women with variations in sex characteristics (VSC) or who are intersex, may also use services and experience some of the same issues.
People's experience of this service
Women, and their families we spoke to were all positive about the staff treating them with warmth and kindness and providing effective care and treatment. Staff were described as caring, compassionate, excellent and professional. Staff took time to explain things clearly in a way they could understand.
Women felt involved in the decision-making about their care, including when plans had to change. They spoke positively about the variety of food and drinks, specialist support available and would recommend the service to friends and family. Overall women reported a positive experience with the service.
Women had access to contribute and feedback about their experiences through the local maternal and neonatal voices partnership (MNVP) who also fed back to the trust regularly.
Women could access maternity services through their GP, community midwives, self-referral by phone, or an online booking form. However, women could not always access timely care and support when needed and experienced delays accessing the triage telephone line and experienced delays before being reviewed by doctors in the maternity triage. Pain relief was not always offered and administered in a timely manner which impacted on some women’s experience. Some women experienced delay for the induction of labour.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) coordinates a national survey annually to look at the experiences of pregnant women and new mothers who used NHS maternity services. The CQC maternity services survey 2024 result showed that the trust performed better than expected in 1 question, about the same in 22 questions and worse than expected in 1 question. The result showed a decline in performance in some areas compared to the 2023 result. This included women feeling their concerns were not always taken seriously, long waiting time in triage, and they wanted more information about feeding their baby.