Quality and equality in North West London maternity services Community engagement report February 2024

Healthwatch Brent initially set maternity care as a research priority in 2023 and started reviewing experiences of antenatal care at Northwick Park hospital, before extending this to look at birthing experiences and postnatal care. During the work, Healthwatch Brent found that many people choose to go out-of-borough for maternity care, accessing services across the whole of North West London (NWL). Healthwatch Brent reached out to partner Healthwatch organisations across NWL and applied to Healthwatch England for funding to support expanding the research.

The research in this report is a collaboration between Healthwatch in Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster. The project had four aims.

1. Identify any discrepancies in quality of maternal care across NWL.
2. Evaluate the quality of care being received by patients who are most likely to face inequalities in maternal outcomes.
3. Make recommendations for improving the standard of care/
4. Identify any follow up work needed to address inequalities in NWL maternity care.

The Healthwatch involved collated the feedback from 181 individual interviews with women during hospital ward visits and community visits, 16 online survey responses and 10 responses shared during focus groups. In total, the Healthwatch heard from 207 people. From this, the report has six key recommendations.

1. Listening culture should be embedded into maternity services.
2. Work should be done to ensure consistency in the amount of information shared with patients after giving birth.
3. More training should be provided to ensure that staff are able to respond to situations that deviate from expected care pathways.
4. Maternity services should continue to offer high levels of interpretation and translation and maintain vigilance in ensuring all types of information are available.
5. Contingency plans should be put in place for maintaining high standards are care when staffing levels are low.
6. Clear information about postnatal services should be shared with all patients after birth.