Almost Half of Maternity Units Rated as Inadequate or Needing Improvement: CQC

Poor quality care and preventable harm in NHS maternity services “will become normalised” if action is not taken, the health care watchdog has warned. The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) report published on Thursday found only 4 percent of the 131 locations inspected across England were rated as “outstanding,” with 48 percent rated as “good.” Nearly half were rated as “requires improvement” (36 percent) or “inadequate” (12 percent). Standards have fallen at some locations since their last inspections, with ratings for being well-led dropping by 2 levels at 12 maternity units and ratings for being safe dropping by 2 levels at 11 units. The inspections, conducted between 2022 and 2024, also found that safety “remains a key concern,” with not one out of the 131 services having a rating of “outstanding” for being safe. In terms of the safety metric, almost half (47 percent) were rated as “requires improvement,” 35 percent were “good,” and nearly one in five (18 percent) were found to be “inadequate.”...