NHS England’s Maternity Safety Support Programme (MSSP) team visited the Trust between 17 and 20 March 2025.
The MSSP is a national support programme which is there to provide recommendations and guidance to Trusts. NHS England is now formally inviting us onto this programme.
The report for Ä¢¹½tvÊÓƵ contains more than 100 recommendations; many of these are already being addressed in response to feedback from staff, patients, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) reports.
We will be considering the recommendations and working through them as part of our Maternity and Neonatal CQC/MSSP Improvement Programme.
A number of areas of good practice are recognised in the report – these include:
- Excellent cross-site working for both obstetrics and midwifery
- Guidelines and pathways are harmonised across the two sites
- Solution focused staff with a willingness to improve services
- Units were clean and staff welcoming
Recommendations include:
- Consider the benefits of having maternity and neonatal services within the same service unit
- Consider increasing staffing of bereavement midwives to meet demand
- Review complaints processes and feedback to families
You can read the full MSSP report here: