Maternity services at West Middlesex Hospital, which serves mums-to be in Twickenham, have been rated 'outstanding'.

The rating comes from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and is based on an inspection carried out in February.

The hospital is part of the same Trust as Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, which was rated as 'Good' as part of the same inspection.

The inspection was carried out as part of CQC's national maternity inspection programme, which is designed to provide an up-to-date view of the quality of hospital maternity care across the country to support learning and improvement locally and nationally.

The CQC found the following areas of Outstanding practice across West Middlesex Hospital maternity services:

* Maternity services 'had a strong focus on reducing workforce inequalities and inequalities experienced by women and birthing people'.

* Maternity services had improved the way they worked with local communities. For example, the maternity voices partnership co-produced a 'Muslim Mums' memo card with local Muslim women.

* Services were awarded the National Positive Practice in Mental Health winner for 2022 in perinatal and maternal mental health for the Maternal Trauma and Loss Care service.

* Services were shortlisted for work in continuing to adapt and improve services in the 'excellence during a global pandemic' award, including action to secure the homebirth service, swift adaptation of services using technology and redeployment, and developing an antenatal vaccination centre.

* Services had a strong focus on staff wellbeing and use a number of initiatives to maintain and improve this, including staff recognition schemes, award nomination, career clinics and emotional wellbeing support.

Chief Nursing Officer for the Trust, Robert Bleasdale, said: "The inspectors recognised our strong focus on reducing inequalities, how we support families with trauma and loss, our maternity facilities, and that our outcomes are consistent. This is testament to the hard work and dedication of our colleagues.

"We are already acting on recommendations from these reports to make sure we deliver the safest and most personalised, high quality maternity care now and in the future."

Vicki Cochrane MBE, Director of Midwifery at the Trust, said: "I'm very proud of our team of passionate and dedicated midwives, nurses, doctors and support staff who strive to deliver the safest and most personalised outcomes for the pregnant women and people in our care.

"I'm particularly pleased that the inspectors recognised the tremendous work of our maternity cultural safety champions, who work tirelessly to reduce inequalities in our services.

"While the CQC has recognised the many things we do well, we will continue to work hard to make improvements to ensure that everyone receives the highest quality of safe and personalised care."