The CQC 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 in March.
Catherine Campbell, CQC deputy director of hospitals, secondary and specialist care for the South-West, said ‘while women's day-to-day experiences of kindness often remained strong, the systems underpinning those experiences weren't keeping pace'.
The CQC said women's choices about place of birth were sometimes overridden by workforce availability rather than clinical need with delays of over six hours for some women waiting to start an induction of labour at Queen Alexandra Hospital.
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.
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.
Campbell added: ‘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.'
Penny Emerit, chief executive of Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust said: ‘We accept the CQC's findings and are determined to address the issues raised to ensure our services are resilient and meet the needs of the communities we serve. We already have improvement plans in place, and we will continue to work with women, birthing people, families and our staff to ensure these are implemented and fully reflect the improvements we need to make.
‘I would like to thank our staff for their commitment and for the care they continue to provide. Our focus continues to be on ensuring our women and families have a positive experience and receive the best possible care.'
