The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following an inspection of maternity care at University Hospital Coventry, part of University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust.
The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s national maternity services inspection programme (NMSIP). This will provide an up-to-date view of the quality of hospital maternity care across the country, and a better understanding of what is working well to support learning and improvement.
Following this focused inspection, the overall rating for the maternity service at University Hospital remains good. The rating for well-led went up from good to outstanding, and the rating for safe remained as good. University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust’s maternity service is the first to be rated outstanding for well led as part of the NMSIP.
The overall rating for University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust remains as good.
Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:
“When we inspected maternity services at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, we saw a service that provided very good care to women, birthing people and their babies, that was led by extremely committed, visible, approachable and effective leaders who prioritised safety and engaged well with staff, women and families.
Staff were proud of the organisation as a place to work, spoke highly of the culture, were clear about their roles and accountabilities and put women and families at the centre of their care. They were focused on safe, personalised care and ensured women and birthing people had choice and control over the way their care was planned and was based on what mattered to them, and their individual needs and preferences.
“They were focused on the needs of women and provided personalised care to ensure they were safe and well looked after during their birthing experience.
“The service must also be commended for receiving an outstanding rating for being well-led. We saw a highly committed leadership team who worked hard to achieve best practice performance results, whilst ensuring equality and inclusion across the service.
“We will continue to monitor the trust, including through future inspections, to ensure women continue to receive a good standard of care.”
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
- Staff were committed to continually improving services and safe innovation was celebrated.
- Managers appraised staff’s work performance and held supervision meetings with them to provide support and development.
- Training was multidisciplinary, responsive to staff needs and used bespoke programmes.
- People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment.
- The leadership team understood and managed the priorities and issues the service faced and promoted a culture of multi-professional working and learning.
- The service managed safety incidents well and shared lessons learnt with the whole team and wider organisation.
- The service controlled infection risk well.
- Staff assessed risks to women, acted on them and kept good care records.