Eastbourne DGH maternity services praised in new CQC report

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected the maternity services at the DGH in October 2022. The overall rating for the service was ‘good’ – the well-led category got a good rating and the safe category it got requires improvement.

The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s national maternity services inspection programme to provide an up-to-date view of the quality of hospital maternity care across the country.

Eastbourne Midwife Unit – which falls under the umbrella of ‘maternity services’ being inspected – was rated as requires improvement - the well-led category was rated as good and safe category rated as requires improvement.

According to the report, the service did not always have enough staff to care for women and keep them safe. It also mentioned that not all staff had completed their ‘trust-wide’ mandatory training and staff weren’t compliant with level 3 safeguarding. However, staff received multidisciplinary emergency life support training.

The report said: “The service did not use a prioritisation score to risk assess women when they arrived unexpectedly for care. Managers did not monitor wait times. The service did not always review incidents within national targets.”

It also said some policies and devices were out of date and staff appraisal rates were also much lower than targets set by the trust.

However, staff were praised for working well together for the benefit of women and managed safety well. They also assessed the risks to women, acted on them, and kept good records.

The report said: “The service controlled infection risk well. They managed medicines well. Services were tailored to meet the needs of the local population. Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems most of the time and supported staff to develop their skills.

“Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff felt respected, supported, and valued. They were focused on the needs of women receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities.

“The service engaged well with women and the community to plan and manage services. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment and all staff were committed to improving services continually.”

Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC head of hospital inspection, said: “When we visited maternity services at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, we found a service which engaged well with women and the community, to plan and manage services. Its leaders were focused on the needs of women receiving care and were committed to making any necessary improvements.

“Although we found a well-run maternity service, there wasn’t always enough staff with the right skills and qualifications to care for women and keep them safe. However, managers regularly reviewed and adjusted staffing levels and skill mix, and gave bank and agency staff a full induction. Additionally, women accessing the triage service didn’t always have timely telephone access to a midwife which must be addressed.

“We will continue to monitor the service closely, including through future inspections, to ensure women are receiving a high standard of care.”

Vikki Carruth, chief nurse at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Our dedicated maternity teams work incredibly hard to support those who give birth here, and I’m very pleased that the Care Quality Commission found that our maternity services remain well-led.

“The CQC identified that we needed to improve our services to ensure we are able to provide consistently safe care, and in particular that we needed to make sure we had the right number of staff available to deliver maternity care safely. Despite the national shortage of midwives, this is something we have been working on over the last year. We have increased the size of the overall establishment of staff and we will continue to work on recruiting excellent midwives and other maternity professionals into our teams.

“We look forward to continuing to further improve our maternity services and ensure that our communities have the high quality, safe and compassionate maternity care that we want to provide and that they deserve.”

Read the full report here

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