Maternity services at Milton Keynes Hospital receive new CQC rating following inspection

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), has rated maternity services at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as good, following an inspection in March.

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.

In addition to being rated good overall, the maternity services were rated good for safety and outstanding for well-led. Ratings for Milton Keynes University Hospital are unchanged, remaining good overall.

Carolyn Jenkinson CQC’s deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:   “We found a culture at the trust, where staff were focused on the needs of women and people receiving care, because people’s care was placed at the heart of the service by outstanding leadership.

“We saw leaders that had the skills and abilities to run the service, including understanding priorities and managing issues as they arose. The actions of leaders also meant that staff felt respected, supported and valued. We saw a workforce that had the right training and key skills to keep people safe, and worked well together for the benefit of women, people using the service, and their babies.

“However, the trust does need to ensure that all staff are using the new incident reporting system, as we found not everyone was, and this may result in the under reporting of incidents.

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

 Inspectors found that the service controlled infection risk well and staff assessed risks to women and people using the service, acted on them as well as keeping good care records.

Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities and felt respected, supported, and valued. The service promoted equality and diversity for staff in daily work and provided opportunities for their career development.

Leaders and staff actively and openly worked with the local community to plan and manage services, and people could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment.

The service participated in relevant national clinical audits and outcomes for women and birthing people were positive, consistent, and met expectations, in line with national standards.

Staff understood how to protect people from abuse and the service worked well with other agencies to do so. It had enough medical staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience while mandatory training was comprehensive and met people’s needs.

Leaders were visible and approachable and they were well respected, approachable, and supportive, said the report.

The leadership drove continuous improvement and staff were accountable for delivering change. All staff were committed to continually learning and improving services.

The access to information by people and staff about the service, performance, policies and procedures was exemplary.

Inspectors made two recommendations for improvements. They said the trust should continue to improve the incidents reporting process and continue to address the vacancy and sickness rates in maternity staffing.