We carry out inspections of maternity services set within the acute setting in Scotland. Currently this includes obstetric-led or consultant-led hospital or maternity units. The focus for our inspections are the factors that contribute to the safe delivery of maternity care.
Summary
Our inspections are unannounced and focus on:
- key indications of the delivery of care
- fundamentals of maternity care
- management of safety and risk
- clinical Governance structures within the NHS board
- leadership and culture
- standard infection control precautions and transmission-based precautions for infection prevention and control
We will inspect against:
- Health and Social Care Standards (2017)
- Infection Prevention and Control Standards (2022)
- Healthcare Improvement Scotland Quality Assurance Framework (2022)
- and any other standards that become relevant during the course of the inspection.
Our maternity methodology lists the relevant:
- national standards
- guidance
- best practice
We will also consider the delivery of care in line with the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act (Acts of the Scottish Parliament, 2019).
How we inspect services
We will identify any areas where NHS boards need to take action. We call these ‘requirements’. Find out more about requirements on our terminology page.
The NHS board must prioritise the requirements to meet national standards.
Following an inspection, the NHS board will create an improvement action plan. We will publish our inspection and the action plan on our website.
We will report our findings under our Quality of Care Framework domains and quality indicators.