The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating for East Surrey Hospitals’ maternity department, part of Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, has dropped from outstanding to requires improvement following an inspection in September.
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.
Maternity services at East Surrey Hospital are now rated as requires improvement overall, a drop from the previous rating of outstanding. Safety has declined from good to requires improvement and well-led has dropped from outstanding to requires improvement. Effective, caring and responsive were not looked at during this inspection and remain rated as outstanding.
The ratings for both East Surrey Hospital and the provider Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust remain as outstanding overall.
Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC’s deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:
“When we inspected maternity services at East Surrey Hospital, it was good to see a leadership team in place who had the skills and abilities to run the service. But, not enough had been done to maintain the standard seen at previous inspections.
“We found the leadership team used the systems in place to identify risks. However, any actions to manage or reduce these risks weren’t always monitored closely enough to make sure that improvements were achieved in a timely way.
“Staff used the Modified Early Obstetric Warning Score (MEOWS) which is a system used to detect early signs of deterioration in people. In June not all of the records checked had been completed correctly. This places people at risk of not receiving the care and attention needed for a safe birth.
“Audits by the trust showed that ward environments weren’t always clean. Bed spaces were not always visibly free of dust, dirt, and bodily fluids which was a risk to people’s health. This issue was apparent on the day of inspection.
“Staff didn’t always complete daily safety checks of specialist equipment. Resuscitaires and emergency trolleys on the unit hadn't been checked every day and so this did not provide assurance that the equipment was safe and ready for use in an emergency, placing babies needing emergency care at risk of harm.
“We have told the leadership team what they must do to ensure improvements are in place at East Surrey Hospital. We will continue monitoring the service to ensure people receive the high-quality care they deserve.”
Inspectors found:
- The service did not always have had enough staff to care for people and keep them safe
- Medicines were not always managed well
- Not all infection prevention and control measures were effective or completed appropriately
- Not all staff received appropriate safeguarding training
- Action wasn’t always taken to resolve identified shortfalls from audits with clear timescales for improvement.
However,
- The service had an inclusion midwife in post. This persons’ focus was to promote equality and diversity for staff and people and tackling health inequalities
- In Crawley the service had put in place a plan with local stakeholders and services to improve access to maternity care for disadvantaged parts of the population.