NHS England region
Maternity services in North West
17 NHS trusts in North West with their hospital maternity units: CQC’s rating, what women said about the staff who cared for them in labour, and how many gave birth in July 2026. England’s CQC score was 8.4 out of 10.
The CQC score comes from women who gave birth in February 2025: kindness, respect, being listened to, help when you needed it, staff working well together and not being left alone when worried.
NHS trusts in North West
Highest CQC score first for “Staff caring for you in labour”, from the Maternity Survey. Neighbouring trusts are often only a fraction of a point apart, well within the survey’s margin: CQC’s own comparison, beside each one, is what tells trusts apart. We do not grade maternity care: we show CQC’s ratings, CQC’s survey scores and NHS England’s figures for births. Trusts care for different women: a specialist unit takes the most complex pregnancies from a wide area, so a figure on its own says little about the care.
Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.8/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 160 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 580
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Liverpool Women's Hospital).
University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.8/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 105 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 200
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Furness General Hospital); Good (Royal Lancaster Infirmary); Good (Westmorland General Hospital).
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.7/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 97 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 170
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (The Countess of Chester Hospital).
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.7/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 141 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 415
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Ormskirk District General Hospital); Good (Whiston Hospital).
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.7/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 102 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 200
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Arrowe Park Hospital); Good (Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust).
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.6/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 102 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 370
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Chorley and South Ribble Hospital); Requires improvement (Royal Preston Hospital).
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.6/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 138 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 215
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Stepping Hill Hospital).
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.5/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 103 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 170
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Royal Albert Edward Infirmary).
Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.4/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 140 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 225
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Leighton Hospital); Good (Victoria Infirmary).
North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.4/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 123 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 195
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Warrington Hospital).
Bolton NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.3/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 110 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 370
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Royal Bolton Hospital).
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.3/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 115 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 485
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Blackburn Birthing Centre); Good (Burnley General Hospital); Good (Rossendale Primary Care Centre).
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.3/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 390 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 1,165
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (North Manchester General Hospital); Requires improvement (Saint Mary's Hospital); Requires improvement (Wythenshawe Hospital).
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.2/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 90 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 200
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Blackpool Victoria Hospital).
East Cheshire NHS Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 8.1/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 80 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: about the same as most trusts.
- Women who gave birth
- 105
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Good (Macclesfield District General Hospital).
Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 7.4/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 111 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: worse than expected.
- Women who gave birth
- 155
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Tameside General Hospital).
Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust
- Staff caring for you in labour
- 7.2/10
- CQC Maternity Survey 2025, 106 women answered
- England: 8.4. CQC: much worse than expected.
- Women who gave birth
- 360
- in July 2026
CQC maternity rating: Requires improvement (Rochdale Infirmary); Requires improvement (Royal Oldham Hospital).
Where the figures come from
CQC’s inspections and survey, and the births each trust reported to NHS England.
Sources: CQC maternity ratings as at 1 October 2026; CQC Maternity Survey 2025 (women who gave birth in February 2025, published 10 December 2025); NHS England, Maternity Services Monthly Statistics, July 2026 (published 22 October 2026). Open Government Licence. CQC is not responsible for how we present its data.
Data updated
The month each source’s data runs to, and when its publisher released it.
- CQC Maternity Survey: (published 10 December 2025)
- Maternity Services Monthly Statistics: (published 22 October 2026)
- CQC ratings: (published 2 October 2026)
Sources
- Contains information from the Care Quality Commission, licensed under the Open Government Licence. CQC must be acknowledged as the source of the data; CQC is not responsible for our analysis.
- Contains information from NHS England, licenced under the current version of the Open Government Licence