Leeds General Infirmary

Ratings - Maternity

• Overall

  Inadequate

• Safe

  Inadequate

• Effective

  Requires improvement

• Caring

  Requires improvement

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Inadequate

Our view of the service

Leeds General Infirmary provide obstetric and midwifery services along with community midwifery care. It is a tertiary unit and therefore provided care for and advice to clinicians caring for women with complex needs. The service includes pre-conceptual care, early pregnancy care, antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care. The maternity unit includes an obstetric consultant-led delivery suite, maternity assessment centre (triage), and wards for antenatal and postnatal care.

In addition, the midwifery-led birth centre provides intrapartum care for women and birthing people, who are assessed as meeting the criteria to have lower risk pregnancies. The birth centre has 3 birthing rooms, two of which have birth pools and ensuite facilities.

We visited the antenatal clinic, antenatal day unit, maternity assessment centre (MAC), antenatal ward and postnatal ward, delivery suite and obstetric theatres. We reviewed feedback from women who use the service and 29 staff, including midwives, doctors, consultants and senior managers. In addition to this we also held meetings with midwives, doctors and consultants, to hear their views of the service provided. We observed care and treatment, inspected several patients' care records in each area we visited and reviewed the Trust's audits and performance.

The service was in breach of the legal regulation relating to learning following incidents, risk management, safe environment, infection prevention and control, medicines management and some governance processes. Following our inspection, we issued the service with a warning notice in regard to staffing.

We refer to women in this report, but we recognise that some transgender men, non-binary people and people with variations in sex characteristics (VSC) or and who are intersex may also use services and experience some of the same issues'

People's experience of this service

We spoke with 9 parents and family members who attended maternity services during our inspection. Those we spoke with during the inspection gave us mixed feedback about their experiences of the service. 

We also received mixed feedback about the service directly to CQC via calls and emails. Some people told us they did not feel involved in the planning and reviewing of their care due to staff being very busy. Others told us they were not listened to or made to feel like an inconvenience if they asked questions or needed assistance. 

Other people however, told us the treatment they received was kind and caring.  

We heard from midwifery staff that there were challenges in providing the level of care they wished to, because of significant staffing shortfalls against the requirements of the service.