The Care Quality Commission has found that maternity services at the new site are in breach of the regulations regarding how the service is being managed.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated maternity services at Royal Bournemouth Hospital, run by University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, as requiring improvement, following an inspection last September.
This was the first inspection of the service in its new location in the Birth, Emergency, Critical Care and Child Health (BEACH) building. Maternity services are now based at this new purpose-built unit that provides antenatal, triage, birth and postnatal care. CQC carried out the inspection following the service’s move in March 2025 to assess how well the new unit was functioning and whether it was keeping women and babies safe.
Inspectors found the department was in breach of the regulations regarding how the service is being managed.
“When we visited maternity services at Royal Bournemouth Hospital, we found committed staff doing their best in a busy new unit. But leaders didn’t always have a clear understanding of the risks women were facing, or the staffing pressures building up across the service. This meant women weren’t always triaged quickly, and delays could affect the safety of care,” said Catherine Campbell, CQC deputy director of hospitals, secondary and specialist care for the South-West.
“Women told us staff treated them with kindness and compassion, and we saw this during our visit, but ongoing shortages, high sickness and gaps in the rota made it harder for staff to give people the timely support they needed,” she continued.
Unstaffed and delays
Inspectors found that the maternity service frequently left the advice line unstaffed, diverting calls to triage or the labour ward and delaying urgent advice for women. Staff often delay the induction of the labour process, leaving some women waiting many hours or days and increasing distress. The likelihood of intervention and staffing shortages and limited theatre capacity led staff to cancel some elective caesarean sections, creating uncertainty and increasing anxiety for women.
The much-needed spotlight on maternity care in Britain continues.
At the end of March, the government finalised the membership of its National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, which will look into reports from Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos, and her independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services in England.
Amos published her initial impressions in December into 14 hospital trusts as part of a rapid, independent, national investigation into maternity and neonatal services and published her bleak interim report at the beginning of March.
Amos’s recommendations are expected in June.
In Scotland, which has been undergoing its own maternity review, new maternity standards have been published by Healthcare Improvement Scotland.