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The Healthcare Commission today (Friday) welcomed the publication of the King’s Fund report Safe Births: Everybody’s Business.

Sue Eardley, Maternity Lead for the Healthcare Commission, said:

"The King's Fund report provides another important piece of the picture on safety in maternity services in England. It also echoes many of the findings from our own work. Our recent review of maternity services across England did not find any NHS trust to be offering an unsafe service, but it did show that changes are needed in the way maternity services are provided. We welcome the practical advice this report offers to trusts in affecting that change.

"We note the King's Fund's concerns about the need for a more systematic approach to setting standards for maternity services. We stand ready to work with the King's Fund, the Royal Colleges and others to put those standards in place."

More information on Safe Births: Everybody’s Business (opens new window)


Notes to editor:

The Healthcare Commission found significant variations in the quality of maternity care across England when it published the scores for its maternity service review in January 2008. As part of the review, the Commission ranked 22% of maternity services as “fair performing” (32 NHS
trusts) and 21% as “least well performing” (31 trusts). Some 26% of trusts were “best performing (38 trusts) and 32% were “better performing” (47 trusts). (Please note that percentages for numbers of trusts in each category add up to 101% due to rounding.)

The indicators used in the review are designed to assess services that all trusts would normally be expected to deliver.


Each trust is ranked in relation to one another on the following scale:

• Least well performing - The group of trusts relative to others that is scoring at the lowest end of the performance distribution. There is evidence that they lag behind in a range of key areas and need to improve. It does not mean that the trust is providing care that is unsafe. If we have concerns that a trust is unsafe, we do not hesitate to use our powers of enforcement by, for example, carrying out investigations

• Fair performing - The group of trusts which is scoring at this level in the distribution of performance should benefit from improvement for one or more of the key areas covered in the review.

• Better performing - The group of trusts scoring at this level demonstrated good performance in some key areas which was better than many other trusts, but where there is scope for improvement in some areas.

• Best performing - The group of trusts scoring at this highest level performed better than most other trusts in a range of key areas.

For further information, contact Creina Lilburne, Acting Media Manager, on
020 7448 9439 or after hours on 07941 156 827.