Tears of pride flowed last Friday as our colleagues in Maternity Services found out they’d been rated 'Good' again by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), following an inspection in June.
Chief Nurse, Lindsay Rudge, said: “I could not be prouder of this team. Announcing this today has been one of the highlights of my career at CHFT.
“It’s wonderful news and reflects the hard work and dedication of all our colleagues delivering maternity services. I've never known a service to be under so much scrutiny and it’s been a tough week for the whole of the NHS.
“I’m delighted that the report recognised how proud our maternity colleagues are to work here, and how dignity and respect are intrinsic elements of our culture.
“The CQC recognised our areas of outstanding practice, particularly highlighting our work to support women and birthing people who have experienced a previous baby loss, and those having a surrogacy pregnancy. The report also praised our breast milk donation bank, which supports babies who have been born prematurely.
“We always strive for improvement and there is always more we can do. We will continue to integrate the recommendations the CQC have made to further develop our maternity services, with a focus on improving staffing levels as a priority.”
And speaking directly to Assistant Director of Nursing, Diane Tinker, who retires this week, Lindsay said: "Diane, you’ve put your heart and soul into this service, working with your teams to develop the service, showing amazing leadership. You've left a legacy for sure and things can only get better"
Diane, pictured below, said: "It might be my name over the door, but we couldn't have got here without the whole team. I'll always say that here in maternity we know our business and can share what we do well, as well as saying what could be better and how we'll fix it."
What the CQC said:
Carolyn Jenkinson, Deputy Director of Secondary and Specialist Healthcare at the CQC, said: “We saw a service that provided good care to women and people using the service, and their babies. It was led by committed and effective leaders who prioritised safety and made any necessary improvements when concerns were raised to them.
“We saw staff who were proud of the organisation, were clear about their roles and accountabilities and put people at the centre of their own care. Dignity and respect were intrinsic elements of the culture and all staff we observed clearly demonstrated this.
“Staff spoke positively to us about the leadership team and how they were able to speak up about difficult issues. For example, staff raised concerns around the induction of labour process and how their well-being had been impacted by abuse from people due to delays in care. As a result, a quality improvement project was undertaken to look at improving the process and reduce any delays.
“It was also positive to see the service’s commitment in trying to tackle health inequalities. Maternity staff had recently, alongside the local college, conducted some antenatal classes for people whose first language isn’t English.
“We did see some areas where improvements are needed. The service was sometimes understaffed which could place women, people using the service and their babies at risk. It was encouraging, however, that leaders had a responsive approach to these shortages and moved staff between units to ensure people at higher risk were fully supported."
The full report can be viewed on the CQC’s website.
