Help us improve our maternity services

A survey is due to launch in April to find out people’s experiences of using NHS maternity services.

To help us understand what you think of our maternity services and the care we provide, if you gave birth at Medway Maritime Hospital in February this year, you may be invited to give feedback on the quality of care and support you received during your pregnancy, labour and birth, and after you and your baby went home.

If you are invited to take part, you will receive a letter with information on how to complete the survey online or on your phone. If you would prefer to complete the survey on paper, a paper questionnaire will be sent in a later mailing. Participation will not affect your care in any way. The survey is confidential, and your responses will not be shared with our staff.

Alison Herron, Director of Midwifery, said: “The results of the survey, which will be published in Autumn 2025, will be used by us to understand what you think of our maternity services and care.

“It will also help us monitor the quality of our services and help us to make improvements to our maternity services so we can provide the very best care for you and your baby, and support our local community so please ensure you have your say by completing the survey.”

Last year, we received 109 responses from those who gave birth at the hospital in February 2024. Areas where there has been a significant improvement since the 2023 survey results include:

• 99 per cent found their partner was able to stay with them as long as they wanted (in hospital after birth) – up from 38 per cent
• 83 per cent felt their midwives were aware of their medical history (postnatally) – up from 73 per cent
• 95 per cent said their partner/companion was involved (during labour and birth) – up from 89 per cent.

The survey results, which were published in November last year, also identified several key areas for improvement. These include:

• enhance the quality of care provided
• improve communication among staff and with patients
• improve care planning and coordination
• increase staff availability and reduce waiting times
• improve pain relief management
• ensure informed consent and respect for patient autonomy.

Alison added: “The areas for improvement are the focus of the Maternity Service Team’s improvement action plan over the course of the next year to ensure we address the issues raised and make the changes needed to help improve the service so all of our maternity service users have a positive experience.

“Feedback with less than an 80 per cent positive score has also been incorporated into the plan.

“Some of the things we are doing include developing a suite of videos about patients’ experiences for staff training, recruiting to vacant posts as soon as we can, implementing a revised triage system for urgent cases, providing consistent and well-documented care plans for all patients, and reviewing our consent procedures.”

For more information about the survey, visit http://www.cqc.org.uk/