The Care Quality Commission
  • Hospital
  • NHS hospital

Birmingham Women's Hospital

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Mindelsohn Way, Birmingham, West Midlands, B15 2TG (0121) 427 137

Provided and run by:
Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Important: This service was previously managed by a different provider - see old profile

All Inspections

22 March 2023

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Pages 1 and 2 of this report relate to the hospital and the ratings of that location. From page 3 the ratings and information relate to maternity services based at Birmingham Women’s Hospital.

We inspected the maternity service at Birmingham Women’s Hospital as part of our national maternity inspection programme. The programme aims to give an up-to-date view of hospital maternity care across the country and help us understand what is working well to support learning and improvement at a local and national level.

We will publish a report of our overall findings when we have completed the national inspection programme.

We carried out an announced focused inspection of the maternity service, looking only at the safe and well-led key questions.

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust provides maternity services for the population of Birmingham and the surrounding areas. The fetal medicine centre receives regional and national referrals. The maternity department comprises of delivery suite, triage, postnatal and antenatal wards, day assessment unit, midwife and consultant led clinics, scanning services, a bereavement suite, as well as a maternity led unit birthing centre.

We did not review the rating of the location therefore our rating of this hospital stayed the same

This hospital is rated Good.

How we carried out the inspection

We spoke with 32 staff including senior leaders, matrons, shift leads, midwives, obstetric staff, specialist midwives, receptionists, cleaning contractors, clinical governance leads and safety champions to better understand what it was like working for the service. We interviewed leaders to gain insight into the trust’s leadership model and the governance of the service. We reviewed 8 sets of maternity and 17 medicine records. We also looked at a wide range of documents including standard operating procedures, meeting minutes, risk assessments, recent reported incidents as well as audits and audit actions.

We ran a poster campaign during out inspection to encourage pregnant women and mothers who had used the service to give us feedback regarding care. We received 2 feedback forms from women. We analysed the results to identify themes and trends.

You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.

2 Apr to 25 Apr 2019

During a routine inspection

The Birmingham Women’s Hospital became part of The Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in February 2017. This meant our ratings from the last inspection of this hospital in 2016, no longer applied at the time of this 2019 inspection.

We rated it them as good because:

  • Our rating for safe was requires improvement overall. The service provided mandatory training in key skills however this was not accurately recorded on the electronic system which meant staff were reliant on their local records to monitor compliance. Some elements of the mandatory training for maternity staff were not included on the electronic system, and compliance rates were skewed by including staff who were off sick or on maternity leave. This meant it was difficult to get a clear picture of compliance rates for all maternity staff for all required training. Staff understood how to protect patients from abuse and the service worked well with other agencies to do so. The service had enough staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment.
  • Our rating for effective was good overall. The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence of its effectiveness. Staff gave neonates enough food and drink to meet their needs and improve their health. They used special feeding and hydration techniques when necessary. All those responsible for delivering care worked together as a team to benefit women.
  • Our rating for caring was good overall. Staff treated women with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their individual needs. Staff provided appropriate help and support for women before and after a termination of pregnancy or miscarriage. We observed staff involve patients and those close to them in decisions about their care and treatment during our inspection.
  • Our rating for responsive was good overall. The trust planned and provided services in a way that met the needs of local people. Staff within the service took account of women’s individual needs. They identified when women’s needs and choices were not being met, and used information to inform how services were improved and developed.
  • Our rating for well-led was good overall. Managers had the right skills and abilities to run a service providing high-quality sustainable care. Managers across the service promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff, creating a sense of common purpose based on shared values. The service had effective systems for identifying risks, planning to eliminate or reduce them, and coping with both the expected and unexpected. Although Radiology managers at all levels did not have the right skills and abilities to run imaging services and provide high-quality sustainable care. Local leaders in the medicine clinical group, which included radiology, were not aware of all the risks and challenges in the service.