2021 Maternity Survey results published

The 2021 Maternity Survey results have now been published. The infographic below looks at the impact of COVID-19, continuity of care, mental health, decline in experiences of postnatal care and differences in experiences between groups of mothers.

Robyn Aldous has written a blog post looking at what this data tells us about maternity care during the pandemic.

• Full results are available on the CQC’s website.

Technical note:

Ipsos coordinates the Maternity Survey on behalf of the CQC. NHS trusts drew a sample of mothers, aged 16 or over at the time of delivery and had a live birth between 1 February and 28 February 2021. If there were fewer than 300 mothers within an NHS trust who gave birth in February 2021, then births from January were included until at least 300 mothers were inlcuded. The survey was conducted using a mixed methods approach, combining online and paper questionnaire modes between April 2021 and August 2021. A total of 23,479 mothers responded to the survey giving an adjusted response rate of 52%. This is a substantial increase on the 2019 response rate of 37%.

Prior to 2021, the maternity survey was conducted using a solely paper-based methodology. Following a successful pilot of a mixed method approach, the 2021 survey transitioned to offer both paper and online completion methods. As part of the pilot survey analysis, it was concluded that this change in methodology did not have a detrimental impact on trend data. You can view this work on the cross survey programme website. Therefore, data from the 2021 survey is comparable with previous years, unless a question has changed.

For each question in the survey, the individual responses are converted into scores on a scale of 0 to 10. A score of 10 represents the best possible result and a score of 0 the worst.

The national level data has been weighted to ensure that each trust, age group, sex, and route of admission (planned or emergency) have an equal influence on results.

Further technical information and the full survey results can be found on the CQC website