Improving your maternity services

Every year thousands of women give birth in our hospitals and community, and we want each and every one of those women to receive excellent care and have a positive experience with us. In the majority of cases this is happening, but not always and we know that isn’t good enough.   

We are committed to making improvements to your maternity services and, while we know there is more to do, we know that we are on the right path to improvement. Colleagues across the Trust are working hard every day to create the best environment and to provide the best care for babies, mothers and families in our hospitals. 
 
Through our Maternity Improvement Programme (MIP), we have reintroduced our Home Birthing service, significantly increased staff numbers, feedback from patient surveys has improved and is consistently positive. We have also heavily invested in our services, launching a new Fetal Medicine Unit and Neonatal Unit.

In 2023, the independent regulator of healthcare in England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) looked at maternity services at Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital and increased the rating at both sites from inadequate to requires improvement. In our latest inspection report, published in March 2025, the CQC recognising further improvements and increased our ‘effective’ rating to good, having previously been requires improvement.

Read the latest CQC report

Our maternity services are also subject to an Independent Maternity Review, led by Donna Ockenden, which began in September 2022 and is currently expected to be completed in 2026. The review was established to listen to women and families, to fully understand their experiences, and to address concerns raised about the quality and safety of our maternity services. The review will make recommendations to help improve safety, quality and equity of our care.

We continue to work hard to make the necessary and sustainable improvements to our maternity services for our communities and also for our staff. We are working closely with Donna Ockenden and listening to family feedback to create services that our patients can rely on.

Below is a timeline of some of the key things that we have done to improve our maternity services so far. 

Independent Maternity Review update

As of the end of the day on 31 May 2025, the Independent Maternity Review will be closed to new cases in line with the Terms of Reference for the Review.  You can read more about the latest on the Review and next steps on the IMR website.

We still want to hear your reviews and experiences of care, and you can do this directly by emailing nuhnt.postimr@nhs.net or through the usual routes such the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs).

2024

  • The CQC lifted warning notices for maternity and leadership.
  • The Trust updated its maternity triage policy, reflecting the RCOG good practice paper with a new Maternity Triage Guideline.  
  • Care Quality Commission maternity survey scored areas of NUH as significantly improving since 2022.  
  • Improvements in staffing, retention and training, including specialist skills recruited to support maternity patients with complex needs, 18 new international midwives and an increased number of obstetric consultants.    
  • Inclusive Maternity Work Group was established, including an introduction of Cardmedic translation app, community outreach work with underrepresented communities, offering bilingual classes to Urdu speaking women, video and leaflet translations and additional cultural staff training.   
  • Increased staff engagement - Robust governance processes to ensure ward to board reporting, Chair and Chief executive meetings with staff, monthly staff engagement events, Maternity and Neonatal safety champion walkabouts.  
  • Five new public commitments made to families involved in the maternity review.
  • A brand-new £1.4million Fetal Medicine Unit opened its doors to women and birthing people at the Queen’s Medical Centre.
  • Home birthing service officially relaunched.
  • Women scored NUH as having improved in the latest Care Quality Commission (CQC) maternity survey.
  • A brand new £32million neonatal unit, the largest in the East Midlands in terms of cots and footprint, opened at the Queen’s Medical Centre. 

2023

  • The CQC increased the overall rating for maternity services from inadequate to requires improvement for the first time since 2020 at City Hospital and QMC. The Trust’s Well-Led rating also improved to requires improvement.  
  • A listening event was held with BAME communities to better understand experiences of our maternity services.  

2022

  • Fetal monitoring training moves from e-learning packages and virtual attendance to a face-to-face training day.
  • A maternity digital clinical system, known as BadgerNet is rolled out to support seamless care across all parts of the maternity pathway.   
  • Feedback from women and families in the Friends and Family Test is consistently above 95% good or very good every month. 
  • Triage wait to be seen consistently above 90% for both sites each month. 

2021

  • Flow Coordinator role created and appointed across both acute sites, providing a conduit between the wards and delivery suite.
  • NUH fetal monitoring guidelines updated. 
  • Single point of access maternity advice line launched.