England’s worst-performing maternity units are today named and shamed.
Exposing the dire ‘postcode lottery’ women giving birth face, damning figures show around 55 per cent in five services nationwide are failing.
Yet for eight parts of England, including Brighton, Derby and Luton, MailOnline can reveal the only maternity unit is rated ‘inadequate’ – the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) worst possible score.
It means that tens of thousands of women have no choice but to give birth in failing units.
At The Royal Sussex County Hospital, CQC inspectors warned call bells would run for up to ten minutes before staff members responded. Emergency buzzers used to call a doctor could not be heard in some areas.
The hospital’s unannounced inspection was carried out following patient complaints and whistleblowing staff.
Results of MailOnline’s forensic audit, available to view below in our interactive map, comes in the wake of a string of harrowing baby death scandals in Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Morecambe and Nottingham.
At Shrewsbury, a thorough investigation into the full horrors found neglect and poor care provision caused 200 babies and nine mothers to needlessly die. An obsession with stamping out C-sections, in order to drive up natural birth rates, was also partly blamed.
CQC bosses have warned poor maternity care risks becoming ‘normalised’.
Concerned experts have, meanwhile, compared giving birth in NHS hospitals with a warped game of ‘Russian roulette’.
Health leaders have blamed a shortage of midwives. Inspectors have also warned of culture and leadership problems.
Nationwide, 110 maternity services, or 55 per cent, are failing.
That is according to the most up-to-date CQC ratings, which judge every facility as either ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.
This marks a slight improvement of levels seen under the regulator’s own sweeping probe in 2023 (65 per cent).
Ratings are based on how units perform against markers such as safety, efficiency, care and leadership.
Within the M25, the only maternity units catering women in the London boroughs of Enfield and Wandsworth were rated inadequate.
Outside of the capital, our analysis showed the same scenario was true in Bedford, Brighton and Hove, Derby, Kingston upon Hull, Luton, and York.
NHS statistics show around 40,000 births are registered across the eight maternity units each year.
Although women have the option to choose where they seek maternity care, many will opt for their closest out of ease and familiarity. NHS bosses say most maternity units also have catchment areas.
Gill Walton, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said: ‘Review after review into struggling maternity services has highlighted the impact understaffing has on the delivery of safe care and this cannot continue to be ignored.
‘It’s never been more crucial that we have the right number of staff, in the right places, with the right skills and training to meet the needs of women using UK maternity services, particularly as we are seeing an increase in more complex pregnancies.
‘Midwives and maternity support workers are working tirelessly to do their best in a system they feel is broken and is not currently supporting them deliver the best care they know they can.’
The RCM’s latest calculation is that England is short of 2,500 midwives.
Ms Walton added that all maternity care is being undermined by ‘crumbling’ facilities.
Emmie Studencki (pictured left) and partner Ryan Parker (pictured right) told a court they had been left with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and depression after the loss of their son Quinn at Nottingham City Hospital, part of the troubled Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust
She added: ‘Maternity care is universal, available 24/7, 365 days a year but despite this, it is too often at the bottom of the list for crucial investment.’
Jessica Brown-Fuller, Liberal Democrat hospitals and primary care spokesperson, told MailOnline: ‘These figures reveal a stark postcode lottery that is far too familiar to many across the country as they go through what is often the most important time of their lives.
‘Expectant parents should feel that the NHS has their back but this support is sorely missing or not up to scratch with staff at breaking point.
‘It is the Conservatives‘ disastrous legacy on the NHS which has brought us to this point but the Labour government’s approach has been nothing short of kicking the can down the road.
‘We need to see all of the immediate and essential actions from the Ockenden report implemented now so that young families can finally get the care they deserve.’
Maternity units in three of the five hospitals in the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, which serves nearly 700,000 people, were inadequate.
Inspectors of the site at William Harvey Hospital, which delivers around 3,500 babies each year, found ‘visibly’ dirty equipment around the ward.
None of the labour suites contained a birthing pool or a resuscitaire, a vital machine used to support a baby struggling to breathe.
Sarah and Jack Hawkins first-born child Harriet was stillborn after a perfectly healthy pregnancy and with no underlying complications or health conditions. They were one of a number of parents involved in the Nottingham maternity scandal
Instead, they were kept down the hall. This meant in the event of an emergency, the newborn baby was moved away from the mother for prolonged periods.
At the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, which delivers around 3,000 babies per year, staff in the unit wore long hair down, false nails and jewelry while on duty.
Bathing pools sometimes went over two weeks without being cleaned.
At The Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury, 5,700 babies are born annually, labour inductions and emergency caesarean births were frequently delayed due to staffing pressures.
Vital drugs were found in random, open cupboards and draws.
On one occasion, a patient’s partner let himself into the securely-locked infant milk storage fridge.
MailOnline analysis found just seven, or three per cent, were awarded top marks.
CQC data used for our analysis is correct as of March 3, 2025. As such, subsequent inspections and gradings after that will not be reflected and could be different.
MailOnline purely looked at ‘maternity’ units and excluded a handful of units that were classified as ‘maternity-gynaecology’, ‘maternity (inpatient services)’ and maternity (community services).
In March 2022, an investigation into services at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust found that neglect and poor care provision caused the deaths of 200 babies and nine mothers.
Earlier this year, Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust was handed a £1.6million fine in court for a ‘long list of failings’ in its maternity care provisions.
NUH is currently at the centre of the largest ever inquiry into NHS maternity care.
The organisation was charged with five counts of failing to provide adequate care, exposing the babies or their mothers to a risk of serious harm, and a sixth related to harm caused to Quinn.
The trust is the first to be prosecuted by healthcare watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) more than once.
It was fined £800,000 in 2023 for failures in the care of Wynter Andrews, who died 23 minutes after being born at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham in September 2019.
Jack and Sarah Hawkins, who both worked for the NHS Trust at the time, had a stillborn daughter at the unit in 2016 following a series of blunders.
During a question and answer session at the trial, Mrs Hawkins, a former physiotherapist, told the trust’s chief executive Anthony May, she would ‘never be able to forgive’ the trust’s staff for the impact of Harriet’s death on her sister Lottie, then four.
An NHS spokesperson said: ‘Despite the hard work of NHS staff, we know that for large numbers of women and families, maternity care simply isn’t at the level they should expect.
‘There is much more we need to do to drive up standards of care and build on improvements already made, and the NHS will continue to provide intensive support to the most challenged trusts and focus on delivering government ambitions.’
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