Our comments on the National Maternity Review

Commenting on the National Maternity Review, Professor Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said:

“We welcome the report from the National Maternity Review. As the report makes clear, every single woman deserves to receive personalised care that is based around their individual needs and decisions when having a baby. This is echoed in the findings from CQC’s latest national maternity survey which reinforce the importance of NHS trusts focusing on women’s individual needs and choices.

“Today’s report and CQC's survey findings both highlight improvements in women’s experience of NHS maternity services in recent years, but also show some variation in the quality of services as an area needing to be addressed. As a result of CQC’s inspections, just over 60 per cent of trust maternity services have been rated as either Good or Outstanding, thirty-four per cent rated as Requires Improvement and 4 per cent as Inadequate. Where we have found concerns we have told trust that improvements must be made.

“The report makes a number of important recommendations to support improvements across the system by giving women more choice, making services safer and ensuring high quality services for all and we look forward to playing our part in overseeing their implementation. The report offers a clear opportunity for trusts to use the recommendations to make individual improvements so that women and their families can rely on consistent and high-quality care no matter where they live in the country”.

Notes

The National Maternity Review was commissioned by NHS England in March 2015 as part of the NHS Five Year Forward View, which sets out a vision for the future of the NHS. More information on the purpose and scope of the review.

The CQC’s latest maternity survey included 72 questions, and was sent to a sample of 50,945 women aged 16 or over to complete between April and September 2015. See overall survey results, including a link to individual NHS Trust benchmark reports showing results for each survey question.

CQC's latest annual State of Care report includes details about what we have found with regards to the quality of maternity care within acute hospitals. It states that 2% are outstanding, 60% are good, 34% are requires improvement and 4% are inadequate.