Developing a new approach to inspecting maternity and neonatal services
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) is developing a new approach to inspecting maternity and neonatal services across Wales. This will provide a clearer picture of whether women, babies, parents and families receive safe, effective and well-coordinated care.
What will be different?
Inspections will look at maternity and neonatal services across a whole health board, rather than focusing only on individual hospital sites. They will consider the care pathway from booking and pregnancy through to birth, postnatal care, neonatal care and discharge, including how hospital and community services work together.
This will be the first time HIW has included neonatal services within this type of inspection, giving greater attention to how maternity and neonatal care work together for babies, parents and families.
Each inspection will be proportionate to the size and complexity of the health board. It will focus on key points in the care pathway and use information about local risks, performance, incidents, previous findings and feedback to decide which areas need closer attention.
What will inspections consider?
- Leadership, governance and accountability
- The quality and safety of care
- How risks are identified and managed
- How care is coordinated across services and locations
- The experiences and views of women, babies, parents, families and staff
- Whether improvements from previous inspections have been made and sustained
How will people be involved?
The voices and experiences of women, parents, families and staff will be central to the new approach. Their feedback will help shape what inspectors look at, support inspection findings and ensure reports reflect both what matters to people using maternity and neonatal services and the experiences of staff providing care.
What is not included?
Some services will not be reviewed in detail, including early pregnancy assessment units, neonatal transport, primary care, care provided by external organisations and most specialist perinatal mental health provision. However, inspectors may consider how these services connect with maternity and neonatal care where this affects referrals, transfers, communication, safety or health board oversight.
What happens next?
We are continuing to develop the new inspection methodology, which we expect to complete by the end of March 2027. Further information about the new approach will be shared as the work progresses.