Maternity services at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust rated as ‘requires improvement’
It follows inspections by the Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has downgraded the ratings of maternity services at Gosport War Memorial Hospital, Saint Mary's Community Health Campus and Queen Alexandra Hospital, from good to requires improvement following inspections carried out in March.
All three services are run by Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.
Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust provides maternity services across the local area. Queen Alexandra Hospital provides obstetric maternity services and a midwife-led birthing unit. Blake Maternity Centre at Gosport War Memorial Hospital and Portsmouth Maternity Centre at Saint Mary's Community Health Campus both provide midwife-led maternity services.
At this inspection CQC found that care had deteriorated and the service was now in breach of five regulations.
Some of the breaches were the same as the previous inspection in relation to safe care and treatment, and how the service was being managed, but CQC found additional issues around staffing, safeguarding and person-centred care.
CQC downgraded how safe, responsive and well-led maternity services were at all three hospitals from good to requires improvement. Effective and caring were re-rated as good.
Also, there was still an ongoing breach of the regulations in relation to safe care and treatment regarding safeguarding training across all three services. CQC also found an additional breach at Queen Alexandra Hospital around good management of the service.
CQC has told the trust to submit a plan showing what action it is taking to make immediate improvements in response to these concerns.
Catherine Campbell, CQC deputy director of hospitals, secondary and specialist care for the South-West, said:
“When we inspected maternity services run by Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we found women were still telling us they felt safe, well supported and cared for by their midwifery and medical teams. Staff explained risks to them clearly and involved them in decisions about their care.
“At Queen Alexandra Hospital, one woman told us her midwife went above and beyond, listening to her birth plan and sticking to it throughout. At Saint Mary's Community Health Campus, women spoke of feeling listened to when planning their care. At Gosport War Memorial Hospital, women valued the continuity they got from having the same midwife throughout their pregnancy.
“But while women's day-to-day experiences of kindness often remained strong, the systems underpinning those experiences weren't keeping pace. We downgraded the safe and well-led ratings from good to requires improvement at all three locations.
“Staffing shortages and operational pressures were having a significant impact on women's care and the choices available to them. At Queen Alexandra Hospital, this meant women's choices about place of birth were sometimes overridden by workforce availability rather than clinical need, and we found delays of over 6 hours for some women waiting to start an induction of labour.
“At Saint Mary's Community Health Campus, women in labour were often redirected to the main hospital site rather than the midwife-led unit they'd chosen, and the trust couldn't tell us how many women this affected because it wasn't monitoring the data. At Gosport War Memorial Hospital, 25 women who asked to give birth at the birth centre were turned away over an 18-month period due to a lack of available staff.
“We also found the trust continued to breach safeguarding training requirements at every site we visited, an issue we'd flagged before and which hadn't been resolved. The trust now needs to address these staffing and governance issues so that every woman's experience is consistently safe, not just consistently kind.”
At Queen Alexandra Hospital, inspectors found:
• Managers did not treat every delay to labour induction as a formal incident, even though 17 women waited more than 6 hours to start their induction in March 2026 alone.
• Staff transferred 17 women to other hospitals for their labour to be induced because of delays and pressure on the service.
• Doctors did not always review the highest-risk women within the required 4-hour timeframe, and the hospital's own checks could not prove this standard was being met.
• Staff did not always ask safeguarding questions during pregnancy check-ups, and most doctors had not completed safeguarding training, with only 29% up to date.
• Leaders had not fixed long-running poor behaviour from some senior staff on the labour ward, and some newer midwives said they felt unable to raise concerns or ask these colleagues for help.
• Staff did not always support partners to stay with women for as long as they wanted after the birth of their baby, scoring far below the national average on this measure.
However, inspectors also found:
• Staff treated women with kindness and compassion, and mothers described their midwives as going above and beyond, with one saying she'd had the best birthing experience.
• Staff created a service where most women and staff felt comfortable speaking up and having their voice heard.
• Leaders worked with families from ethnic minority backgrounds to understand their experiences, including hosting a listening event for Muslim women that led to the trust offering female obstetricians on request.
At Saint Mary's Community Health Campus, inspectors found:
• Staff transferred a woman in active labour to the main hospital by ambulance because there weren't enough staff available at her chosen birth centre.
• Leaders did not fix a broken emergency equipment check, missing nine daily checks on newborn resuscitation equipment over three months.
• Managers left doors to areas containing pipework and electrical cabling unlocked, creating a risk to staff and members of the public.
• Staff did not consistently record safeguarding checks during pregnancy appointments, and only 29% of doctors had completed the required safeguarding training.
However, inspectors also found:
• Staff involved parents fully in investigations when things went wrong, giving them a copy of the report and offering a meeting to discuss what happened.
• Staff treated women with kindness and respect and cared for them in a way that protected their privacy and dignity.
• Leaders worked with local midwives and doulas to improve how the service worked with the wider community.
At Gosport War Memorial Hospital, inspectors found:
• Managers did not have clear oversight of how the service was performing, keeping key information on separate spreadsheets rather than in one place they could easily check.
• Leaders did not fix gaps in daily safety checks on emergency birth equipment, missing checks on seven occasions in the three months before the inspection.
However, inspectors also found:
• Staff treated women with kindness and respected their privacy and dignity throughout their care.
• Staff supported women from different cultural and religious backgrounds, including adjusting visiting times for families observing religious fasting.
• Managers gave staff direct support from a senior midwife, and staff said they always knew who to contact if they needed help
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the coming days.