The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has found improvement in the care being provided in maternity services at The County Hospital, run by Wye Valley NHS Trust, following an inspection in June.
The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s national maternity services inspection programme. 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.
As well as overall maternity services at The County Hospital improving from requires improvement to good, so has how well-led the service is. Safe has again been rated as requires improvement. Effective, caring and responsive were not looked at during this inspection and remain rated as good.
The overall rating for The County Hospital remains as requires improvement overall.
Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC’s deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:
“When we visited maternity services at The County Hospital, staff were working incredibly hard to deliver a high standard of care to women, people using the service, and their babies. We found a well-respected and supportive leadership team who had the skills and abilities to run the service well, however there were some areas of concern which needed to be addressed to keep people safe.
“Inspectors found staffing levels didn’t always match the planned numbers, putting the safety of people using the service at risk. For example, during the inspection, on the delivery suite there were three midwives and no support worker, when there should have been one on duty. Also, there were multiple times the triage area didn’t have a midwifery support worker or the appropriate number of midwives which must be addressed as a priority.
“Despite finding some issues, staff had worked hard since our previous inspection to improve the quality of care they were delivering to women, people using the service and their babies, and people we spoke to during the inspection were positive about their experience.
“Additionally, leaders engaged well with people using maternity services and the community to plan and manage services, and it was reassuring that they could access it when they needed it.
“We’ll continue to monitor the service, including through future inspections, to ensure people continue to receive a good standard of care.”
Inspectors found:
- Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills
- People could access the service when they needed it
- Staff morale was good. They felt respected, supported and valued and were focused on the needs of people receiving care
- Women and people using the service CQC spoke to during the inspection were positive about their experience of maternity services
- Leaders were focused on improving outcomes for women, people using the services and babies receiving care.
However:
- Not all staff had training in key skills or had been trained in how to protect people from abuse
- Daily safety checks of specialist equipment were not always carried out
- The service could not be assured that cardiotocography (CTG) monitoring was reviewed in line with guidance
- Leaders could not be assured staff assessed risks to people or acted on them as policies were not always up to date or aligned to current and evidence-based practice
- The role of the surgical assistant had not been risk assessed to ensure the role was carried out by staff with the right level of qualification and additional training.