The Care Quality Commission has today published a report following a short-notice inspection of maternity services at both North Devon District (NDDH) and Royal Devon and Exeter (RD&E) hospitals and has rated the services as ‘Requires Improvement’.

This inspection in November 2023 was part of the CQC’s national maternity inspection programme and reviewed two aspects of the service: safe and well-led. This inspection didn’t rate how effective, caring, and responsive the services were.

This new inspection does not alter the existing overall CQC rating for the Royal Devon which remains at ‘Requires Improvement’.

In the report, there are common themes of improvement required at both NDDH and RD&E. These include triage, training compliance, cleanliness, record-keeping, and management of risk and performance.

Sam Higginson, Chief Executive Officer, said: “As a learning organisation, we use all feedback as an opportunity to improve our services and work is already underway to address the findings in the report.

“We are of course disappointed with the outcome, however we feel the reports provide a constructive and comprehensive sense of the areas we must target for improvement to ensure we meet the needs of women and birthing people and their babies in North and East Devon.”

The inspection reports acknowledge a number of areas of good practice throughout the services including visible and supportive leaders, a clear vision, open culture and good engagement with women and partner organisations to improve services.

Sam Higginson added: “We are pleased that a number of strengths have shone through and we will build on these as we work together with our colleagues, patients and partners to improve our services.

“We are also viewing the reports alongside the positive feedback we received in the recent CQC maternity patient survey, where patients reported that our services offer compassionate, professional and personalised care.”