- NHS hospital
Blackpool Victoria Hospital
Report from 12 December 2024 assessment
Ratings - Maternity
Our view of the service
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides health services across the Fylde coast, Lancashire and south Cumbria and supports a population of 1.6 million. The trust provides a range of acute services to the 352,000 population of the Fylde coast and the estimated 18 million visitors who visit each year.
Blackpool Victoria Hospital is a large acute hospital with 793 beds and employs approximately 7090 staff. Maternity services are provided at this site and the maternity unit delivers approximately 2,600 babies every year.
Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s maternity unit comprises a consultant led labour ward, a midwifery led birthing unit and a joint maternity antenatal and postnatal ward. Outpatient services are also provided in the maternity day unit, triage unit, antenatal clinic and in the community.
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 who are intersex may also use these services.
The rating from this maternity services assessment has been combined with ratings of other services from last inspections. The overall rating for the hospital remains inadequate. See our previous reports to get a full picture of all other services at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
Our previous inspection of maternity services at Blackpool Victoria Hospital was on 21 and 22 June 2022. We rated the overall service as requires improvement.
Following the 2022 inspection, we wrote an urgent letter to the trust describing the serious concerns found during our inspection and requested assurances and an action plan of how it was going to improve maternity care. The trust took immediate action to address the concerns, and we received information to demonstrate this.
We conducted this unannounced focused assessment on 18 and 19 March 2025 as a follow-up of the requires improvement rating and Section 31 letter of intent. We assessed 28 quality statements across the safe, effective, responsive and well-led key questions. We did not assess the caring key question during this assessment.
We visited the maternity day unit, triage, antenatal ward and postnatal ward, delivery suite and obstetric theatres. We spoke with women who used the service and staff, including midwives, doctors, consultants and senior managers. In addition to this we also spoke with partners and stakeholders to hear their views of the service. We observed care and treatment, inspected women’s care records, and reviewed the trust’s audits and performance data.
As a result of re-rating the maternity service, the safe key question changed from inadequate to requires improvement. The key question responsive changed from requires improvement to good. The effective and well-led key questions remained as requires improvement. The caring key question has remained good and is based on the previous rating.
Following this 2025 assessment we sent an urgent letter to the trust describing our concerns around the number of consultant vacancies which was impacting on patient care, appropriate theatre staffing and delays to the induction of labour process.
The trust took immediate action to address the concerns and submitted an action plan. This provided sufficient assurance that appropriate action had and was being taken by the trust to reduce immediate safety risks to women and their babies. This meant we did not need to take urgent enforcement action.
People's experience of this service
Feedback from women we spoke with onsite was mainly positive about the care being provided. Women told us that they were happy with the care they had received and were informed of what to expect during labour and they understood the process.
They told us they were offered pain relief and were happy with the food and drink options that were available.
Women told us that staff were helpful, accommodating and polite. They said staff checked if they could enter the bed area when curtains were closed to give them privacy. Women told us that staff gave assistance when needed, for example with personal care and breastfeeding.
However, some women told us that they had experienced delays in waiting to see a doctor and for medicines to be prescribed.