Enter and View report: Maternity Ward at Royal Sussex County Hospital April 2023
On 24th April 2023, an Enter and View volunteer representative, two members of Healthwatch staff and the Strategic Chair of the UHSussex Maternity Voices Partnership visited the Maternity Assessment Unit, the Postnatal and 3 Antenatal wards.
The team talked with six patients across the three wards and asked for their views on their experience with maternity services, what they thought of the ward that they were in, what they thought of the food, what their care has been like, whether they knew when they were being discharged and if someone had spoken to them about what would happen. They were also free to discuss any aspects raised by the patients they met.
You can read our report which is available at the end of this page.
In summary:
A number of positive findings were identified during their visit:
- All staff were friendly and welcoming
- There was a calm, clean and pleasant environment
- Staff photos and names are clearly displayed
- The patients seemed happy and content
- Excellent noticeboard, which was filled with helpful information
Some suggestions were made for improvements:
- Clearer signage for the MAU as you come out of the lift
- Better signposting to MAU
- Uniform significance to be described
- Emergency red cords to be available
- Installation of handrails in the corridors, so women have something to safely hold on to if needed
Patient feedback was positive overall but highlighted areas to improve on:
"Amazing, incredible! We have gone through all the units, and they have all been amazing and everything has been joined up, we even had a text from our GP."
- Patient 2, Postnatal
" The patient said that they had a mostly very good experience, however, she was desperate to tell me that she was not listened to by staff. Having had 5 babies already, she knows that they come quickly after a very short labour time. She told staff this repeatedly but they insisted her husband must go home and come back later."
- Patient 3 Postnatal
The benefits of our visits - and our thanks to staff
Our Enter and View visits are an excellent way for the trust to receive feedback from a patients' perspective on the physical environment of their hospital wards. Many of our findings and recommendations can be easily implemented bringing benefit to hundreds of future patients and staff. Our local trust has actively welcomed and supported these visits and we are grateful to them and everyone involved for their collaboration.
Downloads
What is Enter and View?
Part of the local Healthwatch programme is to carry out Enter and View visits. Local Healthwatch representatives carry out these visits to health and social care services to find out how they are being run and make recommendations where there are areas for improvement.
The Health and Social Care Act allows local Healthwatch authorised representatives to observe service delivery and talk to service users, their families and carers on premises such as hospitals, residential homes, GP practices, dental surgeries, optometrists and pharmacies. Enter and View visits can happen if people tell us there is a problem with a service but, equally, they can occur when services have a good reputation so we can learn about and share examples of what they do well.
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove has worked in partnership with our local hospital trust for several years to conduct regular Enter and View visits. We call these visits to wards and other units 'Environmental Care Audits'. The visits are an extension of a national programme of audits called PLACE – Patient Led Assessment of the Care Environment which involve local people (known as patient assessors) going into hospitals as part of teams to assess how the environment supports the provision of clinical care, assessing such things as privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness and general building maintenance and, more recently, the extent to which the environment is able to support the care of those with dementia or with a disability. Healthwatch will be supporting out trust to undertake their PLACE assessment later this year.
