Maternity services at Stoke Mandeville Hospital given ‘requires improvement’ rating by CQC

The CQC have published the results of an inspection of maternity services at Stoke Mandeville Hospital that was carried out in June 2023.

Following the inspection, the CQC published their report on Wednesday 25th October 2023 in which the maternity service has been rated requires improvement. Details of the areas in need of improvement are given in the report which also recognises that our maternity services are well-led and highlights outstanding areas.

Commenting on the report, Neil Macdonald, Chief Executive of Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, said: ‘We would like to thank everyone working hard in our maternity service for what they do every day to look after the women, birthing people and babies in their care.

We are proud that the CQC recognised in the report published today that our maternity team is focused on the needs of those receiving care, promote equality and diversity and have an open culture where people using the service, their families and staff, could raise concerns without fear.

However, it is important to acknowledge that the CQC also found significant areas for improvement. The safety of those using our services is our priority and there are a number of actions required to make the necessary improvements. In the short term work is already underway to address the issues that have been raised including implementing plans to improve maternity triage, to recruit and retain more staff and to maintain supplies of appropriate equipment. In the longer term we will look at how we can address the challenges of improving the maternity environment in our current buildings.‘

This report does not change the CQC’s overall rating for Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, which remains Good.

*Source of information : Press release from Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.