Are England's maternity services safe?

What defines a safe service? The Care Quality Commission's (CQC) key lines of enquiry can be said to encapsulate the main issues. However, their published provider reports are now often so old as to be unreliable, with changes being made at pace to address this and other regulator woes.

The new, single assessment framework (Care Quality Commission, 2024a) looks set to remain, albeit with a number of simplifications and changes agreed, but yet to be made. At the time of writing, the key lines of enquiry for ‘safe’ are little changed from those of the outgoing framework. These cover safeguarding, risk management, the environment and infection control, safe staffing, medicines optimisation, learning from incidents and safe systems, pathways and transitions. The latter point, focusing on effective action to keep people safe when they move between services, is the only significant addition made to this section of the new framework, moved from a different section.