The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has again rated maternity services at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust as good following an inspection in April.
The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s national maternity inspection programme.
The programme aims to 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 at a local and national level.
Inspectors only looked at the areas of safe and well-led in the maternity services at Hexham General Hospital and Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington.
Following the inspection, the overall rating for maternity at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, as well as the areas for safe and well-led, remain as good. The overall rating for maternity at Hexham General Hospital was rated as good overall and for the areas of safe and well-led.
The overall rating for the trust remains as outstanding.
Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:
“When we inspected maternity services at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, we saw a service that provided good care to women, people using the service, and their babies. It was led by committed and effective leaders who had created a kind and caring culture across both hospitals.
“Staff we met at every level displayed an overwhelming sense of pride and happiness at work. They promoted a culture that placed people’s care at the heart of the service, and they recognised the power of caring relationships between people. This was reflected in recent survey responses where most people who had received care described staff as excellent.
“It was positive to see the service’s commitment in trying to tackle health inequalities. Leaders understood that these affected treatment and outcomes for people from ethnic minority and disadvantaged groups. The service created feedback cards in the five most spoken non-English languages, and a training programme was launched to educate staff on how to identify and reduce health inequalities.
“The maternity service should also be commended for demonstrating some outstanding practice. For example, last year it won the Bright Ideas in Healthcare finals for its Foetal Wellbeing Education Programme. In addition, senior leaders have developed an excellent relationship with the Maternity Voices Partnership and supported them to engage with harder to reach groups in the local area so their voices could be heard.
“We will continue to monitor the trust, including through future inspections, to ensure people and their babies can continue to receive a good standard of care.”
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
At Hexham General Hospital:
- Leaders ran services very well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills
- Staff assessed risks to people using the service and their babies, acted on them and kept good care records
- Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work
- All staff were committed to improving services continually
- Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent
- Leaders promoted an open culture of multi-disciplinary team working and learning.
At Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital:
- The leadership team understood and managed the priorities and issues the service faced
- Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent
- The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them
- There was usually enough staff and leaders had an effective process in place to reduce the impact of any short staffing
- Leaders ran services very well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills.