New mums have praised maternity care at major hospitals in the county.

In results of an annual survey published today, patients have given positive feedback about their experience with University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.

The survey, run by the care quality commission, asked 21,000 women about their experience at 121 trusts across England.

New mums were asked about all aspects of their maternity care, including ante-natal, labour and birth and post-natal care.

The results show University Hospitals Sussex came ninth overall in a scoring system based on the feedback.

It was ranked higher than many of the 121 participating trusts across a range of questions.

No area of the trust was rated below average.  

This comes as Royal Sussex County Hospital's maternity services were called "inadequate" by the health watchdog the Care Quality Commission in 2021.

At the time, it was found that the hospital "did not have enough staff to keep women and babies safe".

Inspectors also found that there was not always decent control of infection risk and that the staff "did not keep good care records."

Back in 2021, it found that the service did not manage safety incidents well and did not always learn lessons from them.

University Hospitals Sussex is the trust in charge of seven hospitals in Sussex including Royal Sussex County Hospital, the Princess Royal and Worthing Hospital.​

“Our maternity teams should be very proud of this year’s survey results,” said Emma Chambers, director of midwifery at the trust.

“They show women and people in our care receive excellent standards of care from our dedicated staff. 

“In particular, the feedback from our service users shows they felt listened to, treated with dignity and respect, and any concerns they had were taken extremely seriously and acted upon.” 

Nearly 330 women and people at University Hospitals Sussex participated in the survey in February 2021.