Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has committed to improving its maternity and neonatal services following the publication of two inspection reports from the Care Quality Commission.
The CQC inspected the Trust’s maternity services in December 2024 and its neonatal services in January 2025 and as a result has graded the Trust’s maternity services as inadequate and neonatal services as requires improvement.
The CQC reports highlighted the need for the Trust to recruit more midwives, improve infection prevention and control, and medicine management, and the need to instil a culture within the maternity service of learning rather than blame.
Chief Executive of the Trust, Professor Phil Wood said: “These reports have highlighted significant areas where we need to improve our maternity and neonatal services, and my priority is to make sure we urgently take action to deliver these improvements.
“I want to reassure every family due to have their baby with us in Leeds and any new parents that we are absolutely committed to providing safe, compassionate care.
“We deliver more than 8,500 babies each year and the vast majority of those are safe and positive experiences for our families. But we recognise that’s not the experience of all families. The loss of any baby is a tragedy, and I am extremely sorry to the families who have lost their babies when receiving care in our hospitals.
“It is vital that as a Trust we listen more to our families and understand their experiences and concerns so we can address these and ensure everyone’s experience is of the highest standard.
“We must ensure we have the right support in place to enable our staff to deliver safe and high-quality care to all our families. We have fantastic teams of dedicated, compassionate staff in our maternity and neonatal services and as part of the inspection the CQC spoke to many of them. I’d like to thank those staff for speaking up openly and honestly and raising their concerns, which included staffing levels and the culture of the services. I recognise we need to be better at listening to our staff and acting on their concerns and I’m sorry we have fallen short on this. I want to reassure staff that they can speak up and will be heard in a supportive way.
“We have already started making improvements to our services, including recruiting 55 midwives since autumn 2024 after additional funding was agreed by the Board last year. We are currently 11 midwives short of our nationally recommended target of 367 but we continue to actively recruit to meet this standard. A further 35 newly qualified midwives are due to start work with us this autumn. We appointed additional midwifery leadership roles to support our clinical teams to deliver safe high-quality care to all our families.
“We are addressing the concerns around culture within our maternity services; we have increased the number of Freedom to Speak Up Champions, encouraging staff to report concerns, and introduced regular ‘Time to Talk’ meetings for each staff group, and monthly open meetings with myself, the Chief Nurse and the Director of Midwifery and Nursing.
“Since the CQC inspections in December and January we have already improved our infection control and cleanliness with greater presence of matrons on our wards, visits and inspections to ward areas and the replacement of damaged furniture and equipment. We have improved our medicine storage and management, with a full stock audit and comprehensive checks implemented.”
The CQC also raised concerns about some babies being transferred from Leeds General Infirmary to the special care baby unit at St James’s University Hospital when it wasn’t safe to do so.
Professor Wood said: “We immediately responded to these concerns and made the changes required and are monitoring this on a regular basis working closely with the Yorkshire and Humber Neonatal Operational Delivery Network (ODN).
“We have a robust plan in place, with the support of NHS England, that will enable us to continue to improve and deliver high quality safe care for the people of Leeds and beyond. We’ve already set up a Maternity and Neonatal Improvement Programme and are establishing a Programme Board which will have an independent chair and include people who have used our maternity and neonatal services, and staff. This Board will be focused on transforming our culture and leadership, providing safe and compassionate care for families, listening to staff and patients, and understanding the needs of our local communities.”
The CQC reports also recognised areas of good practice including how well staff and teams work together, treat patients as individuals, keep them informed, and put people at the centre of their care. They recognised staff are supporting people to live healthier lives and making sure their care, support and treatment meets their needs and preferences, including culture and unique backgrounds.
Rukeya Miah, Director of Midwifery at the Trust, said: “There are clearly areas where we can improve to ensure we listen more to all our families and their feedback, and respond compassionately.
“Already we have started holding listening events with families, ensuring their feedback will drive improvements to our services. We are reviewing our complaints process to ensure our families’ experiences will inform our services and care delivery. By working with our families we will listen and understand better and identify ways to improve their care.”
Parents, parents-to-be and families who have any concerns about their experience at Leeds Teaching Hospitals can contact the team providing their care, or the PALS team on 0113 206 6261 or email [email protected]
The Trust also works together with Leeds Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to make improvements using feedback from the experiences of patients. MNVP parent representatives regularly visit hospital wards and departments to gain feedback from families directly. Anyone wishing to get involved in the work of the MNVP can contact: [email protected] or join their Facebook group.
Click here to find out more about how we are improving your maternity and neonatal services.