Date published: 28 November 2024
New parents believe that Trusts in the North East and North Cumbria have the some of the best maternity services across the country.
In a nationwide survey conducted by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) thousands of parents expressed their views on how their maternal journey went.
The study highlighted several of the region’s maternity units as providing the best experiences during pregnancy, childbirth and early weeks of life.
Only eight trusts in England were listed in the high performing 'better than expected' category – with two of these in the North East and North Cumbria.
Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust and South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust were ranked as the top two providers of maternity care across the whole of the NHS in England with 83% and 82% of positive responses respectively.
(Gateshead Health Maternity team)
The CQC survey highlighted that patients who were treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital expressed high levels of satisfaction with the care they received, praising staff’s empathy, communication and support. At Sunderland Royal Hospital, patients said they felt treated with respect, dignity and kindness and were spoken to in a way they could understand.
All eight acute hospital Trusts in the region were also consistently highlighted amongst the top five performing maternity services in over 30 Trusts across the whole of the North East and Yorkshire region.
Ken Bremner MBE, Chair of the North East and North Cumbria Provider Collaborative and Chief Executive at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“All our trusts have scored highly in the feedback received about maternity care, and to have two trusts recognised as the best performing nationally, really is great news.
“On behalf of all NHS providers in the region I would like to thank the thousands of highly committed NHS staff who work across our maternity services. These results are down to you.
“As a region we are committed to providing the very highest quality of safe maternity care and will continue to learn, improve and share best practice across the North East and North Cumbria.”
NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, Interim Chief Nurse and AHP Officer, Ann Fox said:
"This is fantastic recognition of the hard work and dedication of so many of our maternity teams from the very people they have cared for.
“These teams play a vital role in giving people the best possible start to family life and everyone involved should be proud of the improvements they have made and the care they provide to women and their families at a most precious time.
“We will be looking at and sharing the feedback from these surveys across the region so that we can learn together and improve women's and their families’ experiences further."
The survey gathered responses from 18,951 people across 120 NHS trusts during 2024. None of the region's hospitals featured in the 'worse than expected' category. The full results can be seen at www.
