A new report from the Care Quality Commission highlights continued concern about the variation in the quality and safety of England’s maternity services.

The paper presents an analysis of the key issues persisting in some maternity services and highlights where action is still needed to support vital improvements.

Drawing on the findings from a sample of nine focused maternity safety inspections carried out between March and June 2021, the report reveals ongoing concerns about leadership and oversight of risk, team working and culture, and the extent to which services are engaging with and listening to the needs of their local population. It also points to the pressing need to address the inequalities in outcomes for Black and minority ethic women and babies, which have been further exacerbated during the pandemic.

The CQC notes a variation in the consistency and stability of leadership teams in the services they inspected and, in some services, that a shared purpose and sense of a united ‘maternity team’ was lacking. Inspectors also noted that the extent to which staff were fully engaged with that training varied, and in some services, there was a lack of support for staff to maintain and develop their skills and individual competencies. Poor incident reporting was a further theme and staff did not always recognise what constituted an incident or how to grade incidents correctly.

Ted Baker, CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “We know that there many maternity services are providing good care, but we remain concerned that there has not been enough learning from good and outstanding services - or enough support for that learning from the wider system.

“This report is based on a small sample of inspections carried out in response to evidence of risk so does not present a national picture. But we cannot ignore the fact that the quality of staff training; poor working relationships between obstetric and midwifery teams, and hospital and community-based midwifery teams; a lack of robust risk assessment; and a failure to engage with and listen to the needs of local women all continue to affect the safety of some hospital maternity services today.

“Safe, high-quality maternity care should be the minimum expectation for all women and babies, and it’s what staff working in maternity services across the country want to deliver. We have seen good progress in some services, but we must now accelerate the pace of change across all services to prevent future tragedies from occurring and ensure that women and babies get consistently safe care every time.”