- NHS hospital
Queen's Medical Centre
Report from 4 June 2024 assessment
Ratings - Maternity
Our view of the service
Date of assessment 4 June 2024.
We carried out this assessment following information of concern shared by staff in maternity at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
We inspected 26 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, and well-led key questions and have combined the scores for these areas with scores from the last inspection to give the rating.
We identified 3 breaches of regulation in safe care and treatment.
There was a safety culture where events were investigated. However, learning was not always embedded to promote good practice. Staff tried to provide safe care and treatment, however, many of the pathways and systems were currently in the process of being introduced. When the department was busy, leaders reviewed staffing levels to meet the needs of their patients. However, this was not always possible due to numbers of sufficiently qualified staff.
Staff delivered good care and treatment following evidence-based practice and people mostly had good outcomes. Staff were kind, caring and compassionate. People could mostly access care and treatment when they needed it. The maternity leaders were working to improve governance, risk management and were continuing to address the negative culture that remained in some areas.
People's experience of this service
During our onsite assessment, women, birthing people and any family or carers with them were mostly positive about the staff treating them with warmth and kindness and providing effective care and treatment. They said they were seen quickly when they arrived by trained midwifery staff to find out more about why they had attended. However, we were still receiving feedback that this was not always consistently positive.
Records showed they were not always receiving triage or induction promptly, and staff were not always on hand if they needed them for help or support.
People said they did not feel anxious about raising concerns. Most said communication with them was good, but some people said they would have appreciated more information more often.