Enter and view: Royal Stoke Hospital Maternity Service (Follow Up)

Healthwatch Staffordshire and Healthwatch Stoke on Trent undertook an enter and view visit to the Royal Stoke Hospital Maternity Services on 16 October 2024.  This was a follow up visit to their previous visit in November 2023.

The team visited each of the wards and areas visited previously to speak to patients about their experiences to capture any changes in feedback from the last visit. They spoke to a total of 22 people including 12 mothers/birthing parents and 10 partners and/or relatives across the various units and wards.  They also spoke to 25 staff.

Since our initial enter and view visit in November 2023 there have been improvements in many of the areas that Healthwatch raised concern about in their report. There are some outstanding actions, but they were assured and provided with evidence that are plans are in process to address these. The improvements are evidenced in the feedback provided by both staff and patients/families. There was much more positive than negative feedback and it was clear that the actions taken have had a significant impact on patient care, evidenced through feedback on their experience which was almost wholly positive. 

The feedback provided by staff demonstrated evidence that there is a strong leadership presence which permeates down to ward management level, and this led to a strong feeling of teamwork and mutual support. When talking to staff, what came over strongly was a sense of being valued as a team member. Further evidence of this demonstrated is in the turnover versus attrition of staff figures which are the lowest both regionally and nationally.

There is still work to be done to achieve all the recommendation but with the support of the MNVP, the LMNS and the senior leadership team, and the plans in process we are confident that these can be achieved and improve the experience for patients even further. There are areas of frustration identified by staff that inhibit the delivery of the service to some degree, and we would ask the senior management to demonstrate that these concerns are listened to and addressed. It is also important to acknowledge that from the patient experience, they identified a divide between staff (midwives and consultants) which impacted their sense of wellbeing due to the inconsistencies in the information being provided, discrepancies in what the consultant and then the midwife said, and the emotional (compassion) support provided. This is something that could be addressed by the rolling out of the ‘Be Kind’ training to medical staff working on the unit.