Hospital maternity units in Sussex had mixed results in a national study published today.

The Healthcare Commission carried out a survey of 26,000 women who gave birth in England in January or February this year.

They were asked a wide range of questions ranging from the moment they discovered they were pregnant through to post-natal care.

The commission said most results were largely positive but there were some areas of concern.

The results found that around 24 per cent of women who gave birth at maternity units run by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust were left alone during labour or shortly after birth despite being worried.

The figure for Worthing Hospital was 16 per cent, East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust was 15 per cent and 19 per cent for St Richard's Hospital in Chichester.

The commission warned that midwives may be failing to adequately reassure women when they leave the room.

Official guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) state that women in labour should receive supportive one-to-one care.

It also says a woman in established labour should not be left on her own except for short periods or at the woman's request.

Other results found that 91 per cent of women using Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, said they saw a health professional about their pregnancy as soon as they wanted.

The figure for East Sussex Hospitals, which runs Eastbourne District General Hospital and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards, was 96 per cent, St Richard's 95 per cent and Worthing 89 per cent.

In Brighton and Mid Sussex, 88 per cent of women had the name and telephone number of a midwife they could contact during pregnancy while in East Sussex it was 94 per cent, all women at St Richard's and 95 per cent in Worthing.

The percentage of women who said they definitely or to some extent got the pain relief they wanted ranged from 92 to 94 per cent across Sussex while the percentage of women who said they were always spoken to in a way they could understand ranged from 84 per cent in Brighton and Mid Sussex to 87 per cent in Worthing.

Between 91 per cent and 94 per cent of women in Sussex said they had a postnatal check up at four to six weeks while the percentage of women who saw a midwife as much as they wanted ranged from 70 per cent in Brighton and Mid Sussex to 83 per cent in East Sussex.

Around 34 per cent of women in Brighton and Mid Sussex were not given the choice of having their baby at home, as Nice guidelines suggest, while in the rest of Sussex the figure ranged from 23 per cent to 27 per cent.

A quarter of women in Brighton and Mid Sussex were not offered NHS antenatal classes with the figure rising sharply to 40 per cent in East Sussex, 36 per cent in Worthing and 27 per cent in Chichester.

Less than five per cent of women at all Sussex hospitals said their hospital room or ward was either not very clean or not at all clean.

Nine per cent of women said toilets and bathrooms at the Royal Sussex and Princess Royal were not very clean, while at East Sussex and Worthing the figure rose to 11 per cent.

The figure was five per cent at St Richard's.

Worthing had the worst performance when it came to nutrition with 34 per cent of women branding the hospital food as poor.

St Richard's had the best showing with 14 per cent of women disliking the food while in Brighton and Mid Sussex the figure was 19 per cent and in East Sussex 24 per cent.

Anna Walker, Healthcare Commission chief executive, said: "We have had well publicised concerns about some maternity services so now is a good time to carry out a thorough review of the quality of care women are getting.

"Overall women are clearly positive about maternity services but the results do highlight specific areas of concern and wide variations with issues including postnatal care, communication, food and cleanliness.

"We expect trusts to make full use of their individual results and the opportunity to compare with others. These results show us that many trusts provide very positive services for women. Trusts with less positive results need to learn from the good performers."

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