The Care Quality Commission (CQC) published a report today (Friday 1 October) following its recent unannounced inspection of our Maternity services, looking at two domains - Safe and Well-led.

We are pleased that our rating for Safe did not change.

However, our rating for Well-led was downgraded which has disappointingly meant the service’s rating has been downgraded overall to Requires Improvement.  

Matthew Trainer, Chief Executive, said: “The safety of mothers and their children is very important to all of us and we want to make sure that when the CQC come back they see evidence of this. While we were disappointed to see our rating for Well-led change to Requires Improvement, we are working hard to make sure women can continue to give birth at Queen’s Hospital with confidence.

“The team are taking action to improve the cultural and operational issues within the service, and have already implemented several changes such as additions to our clinical leadership team, including a new obstetric clinical lead and a second Head of Midwifery to oversee good governance, and coaching sessions for consultants.

“Focusing on safety is a priority for the team - it is on the agenda at every meeting and staff are encouraged to speak up about any risks they see, either with their manager or through the independent Guardian Service. Incidents are discussed weekly so any learning from them can be implemented immediately.

“I am also pleased the CQC highlighted several areas of good practice within our maternity department."

The CQC did not review other aspects of the service and so our ratings for Effective, Caring, and Responsive remain Good.