Enter and view: Maternity Services, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital

 Healthwatch Birmingham undertook an Enter and View visit to the maternity and postnatal services at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital on 27 February 2015. The purpose of the visit was to observe service delivery and gather feedback from patients, carers and staff about their experiences. 

The hospital provides a high-volume maternity service, with around 6,400 births annually—well above the unit’s original design capacity. This creates significant pressure on staff, particularly due to shortages of experienced midwives and the reliance on newly qualified staff. Although there is a workforce plan to recruit more midwives, including 44 additional posts, staff shortages continue to affect training opportunities, supervision, and overall workload. 

Despite these pressures, the service has introduced measures to improve care, such as increasing consultant presence, recruiting nursery nurses to support postnatal wards, and developing midwifery assistant roles to help mothers after discharge. These initiatives aim to improve patient support, particularly with infant feeding and postnatal care. 

The report found that systems are in place to respect and involve patients, including interpreting services, specialist support for vulnerable groups (such as women affected by domestic violence, mental health conditions or FGM), and multiple ways for patients to provide feedback. However, access to specialist mental health services was identified as limited. 

Safeguarding procedures were described as robust, with regular staff training and strong security measures, including controlled ward access and electronic tagging of babies. Infection rates were low, and wards were observed to be clean and well maintained. 

Patient feedback gathered during the visit was largely positive, with most patients reporting respectful, kind and supportive care and good outcomes. However, one patient reported dissatisfaction with a lack of daytime support, cleanliness concerns during cleaning, and poor food quality, indicating some inconsistency in patient experience. 

Overall, the report concludes that the hospital provides a good standard of maternity care characterised by dignity and respect, despite operating under significant capacity and staffing pressures. Staff were observed to be caring and supportive, and most patients felt well treated. 

The report recommends continuing efforts to recruit experienced midwives, further developing support roles such as nursery nurses and assistants, improving staff engagement and feedback mechanisms, addressing cleaning concerns, and considering additional facilities such as refreshments for patients.