In November 2023, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a short-notice inspection of maternity services at Torbay Hospital as part of its National Maternity Inspection Programme. The inspection looked only at the safe and well-led key questions.
The CQC report (published on Wednesday 21 February 2024) acknowledges a number of areas of good practice and one area of outstanding practice in the provision of a freephone telephone line for women and birthing people experiencing financial difficulties.
Inspectors also identified areas for improvement which are being addressed through a comprehensive action plan. Many of these have already been completed including a dedicated triage telephone service and the delivery of new equipment which was on order at the time of the inspection. This includes equipment to help babies in emergencies and with resuscitation, and equipment which monitors babies’ heart rates.
Inspectors found service leaders were visible and approachable, supported staff to develop their skills and to take on more senior roles and engaged with people and local communities to plan and manage services. Staff were praised for working hard to reduce health inequalities in childbearing women and birthing people experiencing social deprivation. This includes help and advice from the award-winning stop smoking service. They were also praised for the way they managed safeguarding, incidents, medicines and care records.
Despite many positive findings in the report, the rating for maternity services at Torbay Hospital remains ‘requires improvement’ as does the overall CQC rating for Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust.
This inspection didn’t rate how effective, caring, and responsive the service was, which remain rated as good.
Commitment to providing the best possible care
Nicola McMinn, interim Chief Nurse at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Every member of our maternity team is dedicated to providing the best possible care for pregnant woman and birthing people and their babies.
“We are pleased that the reports reflect areas of good practice as well as highlighting those areas where we know we need to make further improvements. I am particularly proud that the CQC recognised that all our maternity service staff are committed to continually learning and improving services and that our maternity leaders encourage innovation and participation in research.
“As a midwife myself, I know how important it is that we get things right and I would like to assure people that we are listening and taking action. I would like to encourage people to continue to share their experiences of care – whether positive, negative or neutral – so that we can continue to learn and improve.
“We are proud of our maternity teams for the compassionate, professional and personalised care that they provide each and every day and it is positive to see this reflected in the recent excellent results from the CQC maternity patient survey. We will continue to work closely with our local Maternity Voices Partnership and our local communities as we strive to deliver the best possible care.”
Rowan Burrows, Co-Chair Devon Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, said: “We have been working closely with the maternity team by sharing the feedback of service users’ experiences and suggestions for changes. We will continue to work together to drive the continuous improvement of personalised and safe maternity care. There is a clear culture within Torbay and South Devon’s maternity services to proactively listen to and include the service users voice to make positive changes.”
You can join us on our social media pages, follow us on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Threads where you can keep up to date with whats going on in South Devon.
Got a news story, blog or press release that you’d like to share or want to advertise with us? Get in touch via email admin@wearesouthdevon.com
