- NHS hospital
St Helier Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital for Children
Assessment report published 11 June 2026
Contents
Ratings - Maternity
Our view of the service
Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust provide maternity services at both the St Helier Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital for Children and Epsom General Hospital. From November 2024 to October 2025 there were 1845 babies born at St Helier Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital for Children.
We last inspected maternity services at St Helier Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital for Children on 29 and 30 August 2023. This was a focused inspection of safe and well-led as part of our national maternity inspection programme. We rated the maternity service as requires improvement overall. We rated safe as Inadequate and well-led as Requires Improvement in maternity services.
We conducted this unannounced focused assessment on 2 and 3 December 2025 to follow-up on the 2023 inspection findings. As this was a focused assessment, we only looked at the safe and well led domains. There were no breaches of regulation. However, there were still ongoing areas of improvement around staffing, triage documentation and environment.
We visited the following areas as part of the assessment: labour ward, triage, maternity assessment unit, antenatal clinic, theatres, recovery and the maternity wards. We also looked at bereavement facilities. We spoke with the leadership team, matrons and members of the maternity team including midwives, specialist midwives, governance midwives, obstetric consultants, registrars, resident doctors, maternity assistants and anaesthetists.
We rated the service as good. The service has made improvements and is no longer in breach of the regulation for safe care and treatment and good governance. The improvements made since the last inspection in August 2023, were particularly around the triage process, medicines, care records, mandatory training, staffing, transitional care, bereavement, governance, privacy, dignity and respect for women.
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
We received feedback from women and birthing people during this assessment and reviewed comments from “Share Your Experience” forms, patient interviews, and local engagement mechanisms such as the Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP). Women we spoke with onsite reported receiving supportive and kind care from staff, describing them as “welcoming and reassuring.” Several people told us they felt involved in decisions about their care and appreciated that birth partners were able to stay on the ward to provide extra support. Pain relief was reported as being offered and provided when required. One woman said, “Staff were amazing and explained everything clearly. I felt safe and supported throughout.” This was reflective of multiple comments praising staff for compassion and professionalism.
However, some feedback highlighted areas for improvement, which were being addressed by the service particularly around communication and digital systems. A few women reported delays in appointments appearing on the maternity app and occasional conflicting information. This indicated that improvements in communication and technology use were still needed.
Women had access to contribute feedback through the local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP), which fed back to the trust regularly. Advocacy services and translation support were available, and staff use British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters and QR codes linking to translated information to support those with communication needs.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) Maternity Services Survey 2025 showed the trust performed much better’, ‘better’ or ‘somewhat better’ than expected for 3 questions and about the same as other trusts in 24 questions. This was an improvement from 22 questions in 2024 and 20 questions in 2023. This demonstrated a positive upward trend in patient experience, particularly in areas such as involvement in decision-making and emotional support during labour. However, feedback continued to highlight postnatal care as an area requiring improvement, especially around communication and timely pain relief.
At the last inspection in August 2023, feedback was mixed, with concerns raised about staff attitude, communication, and delays in care. 33 women reported negative experiences, while 10 described positive and supportive care. Since then, improvements have been noted in staff engagement and responsiveness, but some operational issues remain. Recent friends and family test (FFT) data for the maternity service showed that 95% of women had a very good or good experience and 5% reported experiencing neither good nor poor care.
Overall, women reported a positive experience when accessing the service, and most felt safe, respected, and involved in their care. Where feedback did not reflect the quality of care delivered, our assessment found that these were isolated issues rather than systemic concerns.