Royal Surrey maternity services rated outstanding

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Royal Surrey County Hospital maternity services as outstanding following an inspection in September.

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.

Royal Surrey County Hospital, part of the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, provides maternity services to the population of Guildford, Cranleigh, Farnham and surrounding areas.

Following the inspection, the overall rating for maternity services at Royal Surrey County Hospital is outstanding. Inspectors only looked at the areas of safe, which was rated again as good, and well-led, which was re-rated as outstanding. The areas of effective and caring remain rated good, and the rating for responsive remains outstanding.

Royal Surrey County Hospital should have been rated as outstanding following CQC’s previous inspection in 2020, but was incorrectly rated as good as the result of an internal CQC error.

The Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust remains rated as good overall.

Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:

“During the inspection of Royal Surrey County Hospital maternity services, we found a team providing good care to women, people using the service, and their babies.

“We found leaders had the right skills and knew what challenges the service is facing and were making improvements where they needed to. They should be proud of the supportive and respectful culture they’ve built, as it underpins a safer service for everyone.

“Staff worked well together, kept good care records, and were assessing women and people using the service effectively and acting on the risks they found. When things went wrong, the service learnt lessons and took steps to prevent it from happening again.

“Staff told our inspectors that they felt leaders invested in them and prioritised their training. It’s great to see a service where staff are encouraged to develop their skills, as this passion drives better care.

“Improvement projects in place tackled inequalities and improved the outcomes for women and people using the service. They held a series of community outreach events throughout the year, which included engaging with less-heard groups such as local Syrian, Kurdish, Pakistani, Nigerian, and Gypsy Traveller communities. They had also updated safeguarding training to support LGBTQIA+ people. Staff and leaders should be proud of their hard work and commitment to improving care.

“We found staffing levels were good and people were able to access the services when they needed them and didn’t have to wait too long for treatment. However, some people weren’t being seen in triage as quickly as they should be. The trust had an improvement project taking place to tackle this and we hope to see the waiting times reduce further.

“We’ll monitor the service, including through future inspections, to ensure people and their babies continue to receive a good standard of care.”

The full report can be viewed on CQC’s website.

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