3 in four women satisfied to endorse their very own maternity unit

Giggles for a infant. The NHS needs suggestions on maternity providers to ‘improve the whole childbirth experience’. Photograph: Edward Carlile Portraits/Getty/Flickr RF

3 in 4 ladies say it is “really probably” they would recommend their maternity unit to friends and family, a survey by NHS England has identified.

Given that one October final year females in every NHS maternity unit in England have been asked questions below the new close friends and family members check (FFT), and the outcomes from the initial three months had been published on the web on Thursday.

Females are asked up to 4 inquiries, each focusing on a distinct element of the pregnancy and birth.

The solutions, relating to antenatal services, birth experiences, postnatal wards, and postnatal local community companies, had been published individually for every month from October to December.

Asked whether they would suggest the labour ward, birthing unit or property-birth support they had employed, 76.five% of the women questioned in the most recent month, December, explained it was “really very likely” they would, even though 17.four% said it was “likely” they would.

Less than 2% answered that they would be “incredibly unlikely” or “unlikely” to do so. The remainder either explained it was “neither probably nor unlikely” they would recommend the support, or answered “don’t know”.

Catherine Calderwood, NHS England’s national clinical director for maternity and women’s health, said: “The FFT is about transparency, and we know that women and their households value us becoming open and honest, even when it has not been an ideal birth or experience.

“By listening to women and acting on their FFT suggestions, we can and will enhance factors. Not just the clinical or security problems, but the whole childbirth knowledge.”

In all ten,001 girls responded to the query about their baby’s birth in December. That represented just 19.one% of the complete eligible number, but NHS England said it was above its target of 15%.

A FFT score has been given for every single region, believe in and hospital in England for every of the 4 concerns primarily based on a formula that subtracts the proportion of girls who responded saying they have been “neither most likely nor unlikely”, “unlikely”, or “incredibly unlikely” to suggest a support, from the variety of ladies saying they would be “incredibly very likely” to recommend it.

Employing this formula, which can give a greatest of 100 or minimum of -a hundred, the general family and close friends score for England for the birth question was 75 in December, albeit with wide variations.

Bath, Gloucestershire, Swindon and Wiltshire was the area team with the highest FFT score (92, with a response charge of 14.three%), although the London location crew had the lowest (62, with a response fee of 15.9%).

At trust level, six had the maximum FFT score of a hundred% but only one of these had a response charge greater than 10%, which was Salisbury NHS foundation believe in, exactly where 29 people responded to the birth question out of 198 entitled to do so.

The Isle of Wight was the trust with the lowest score (38), despite the fact that this was primarily based on the response of only eight girls of 136 who have been eligible.

The following lowest was King’s College hospital NHS foundation believe in in London with a score of 41 based on 110 responses (a response charge of twelve.1%).

Six of the bottom twelve trusts on the birth question had been in London. This mirrors the benefits of a survey final yr by the NHS regulator, the Care High quality Commission, which identified that London was the region of England with the worst perceived maternity care, with 6 of the trusts supplying mothers “persistently worse than average” care.

At the level of personal hospitals there have been once more broad variations, the web sites with severe scores tending to be those with low numbers of responses.

The general FFT scores for England for the other concerns had been 63 for antenatal care, 66 for postnatal ward care and 74 for postnatal ward provision.

Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the parents’ charity NCT, welcomed the survey but stated “progress will only be attainable if solutions act on the results”.

3 in four women satisfied to endorse their very own maternity unit