The NHS Maternity Survey started in 2007 and the 2021 survey will be the eighth carried out to date. This is the first year the Maternity Survey has been offered in both paper and online methodologies and this has contributed to the survey achieving a response rate of 52% (up from 37% in 2019). The survey was sent to all mothers who gave birth in February 2021.[1] This means that respondents experienced the full maternity pathway from antenatal care to postnatal care, under pandemic conditions.

 

This article summarises the findings of the 2021 Maternity Survey, highlighting mothers’ experiences of maternity care, provided by NHS trusts in England during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Impact of COVID-19
The graphic below shows the sequence of national restrictions and how this corresponded with the care pathway that mothers received during their pregnancy, labour, and postnatal care. As we can see, mothers began their maternity pathway in the first national lockdown and gave birth in the third national lockdown.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, guidance from NHS England and NHS Improvement has laid out the steps that trusts should be taking to limit the spread of coronavirus in their care settings. This included placing restrictions on hospital visits. There is a degree of variation between trusts across England in their results as each trust adapted its service provision to suit local circumstances. However, the pandemic has had a clear impact on maternity services across the country and this is reflected in the results of the Maternity Survey 2021.

The most notable impact is on mothers feeling that their birth partners were able to stay as much as they wanted. Just 34% of mothers felt that partners could stay as much as they wanted, down from 74% in 2019.

readmore