About our Maternity Service – Maternity Careers

Maternity Recruitment at ASPH

Our maternity service at Ashford and St Peter’s supports over 3,000 births a year whilst caring for a very diverse population.

ASPH has a higher-than-average number of pregnant people with Diabetes, a wide-ranging ethnicity with 19% of the birthing population not having English as their first language, the largest female detainment prison in Europe, and Surrey also has the fourth largest Gypsy Roma and Traveller (GRT) population of any UK county. The index of multiple deprivation indicates that 18% of the ASPH pregnant population sit within the top quarter for poverty.

Our highly skilled obstetric team, work in partnership with midwives, neonatologists, and anaesthetists to ensure that women and birthing people with complex needs are fully supported throughout their maternity journey and we have a dedicated midwifery team supporting the complex care pathway aligned with our maternal medicine team.

We also care for women who are best suited for or choose a midwifery led pathway and offer home birth and birth in the Abbey Birth Centre.

Our community midwifery teams provide antenatal and postnatal care from community hubs situated across our geographical patch; they also provide labour care in our birth centre. They support the provision of face-to-face antenatal education including sessions on active birth, biomechanics and infant feeding, interventions, and postnatal expectations. Evening sessions are held to discuss the home as a birthplace for those wishing to explore this option. These sessions provide the opportunity to hear homebirth stories and meet some of the community midwives who support homebirths. Within Abbey Wing at St Peter’s Hospital, we provide the following services:

Joan Booker Ward

Joan Booker Ward is a 34 bedded combined antenatal and postnatal ward. There is also a five bedded transitional care bay. A team of midwives, nursery nurses, maternity support workers and doctors are allocated to the ward to provide seamless, patient-centred care.

Labour Ward

Labour Ward has ten labour rooms: encompassing one pool room and three ‘home-from-home’ rooms. One of the ‘home from home’ rooms is a dedicated birthing room for families experiencing pregnancy loss; in which bespoke, sensitive care is offered to families, off set from the main ward. We have a four bedded Observation Bay, where mothers receive recovery care post-caesarean section or close observation. The ward also has two theatres and maternity triage is located on the same level.

Abbey Birth Centre

The home-like environment in the birth centre has four birthing rooms, three of which have pools ,and are designed to feel welcoming and calming. We have a dedicated team of staff working in the centre who are passionate about optimising physiological births. They receive additional training in complimentary therapies including aromatherapy, acupressure, hypnobirthing, massage and moxibustion to help facilitate positive birth experiences and improve outcomes for women, birthing people, and babies. Our midwives run support clinics for individuals wishing to birth in the birth centre at 36 weeks, along with our open evenings, to discuss birth preferences and familiarise themselves with the facilities.

Early Pregnancy Unit

The Early Pregnancy Unit is an emergency referral service which provides care for women experiencing early pregnancy complications prior to their 12-week dating scan, on a same day or next working day basis. The service works as an extension to the Emergency Department services for women who are referred by a healthcare professional.

Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) cares for some of the smallest and sickest babies in the Kent, Surrey, and Sussex Network area and wider. It is the only Level 3 unit in Surrey and provides care for babies born as early as 22 weeks.

The unit comprises four nurseries, with eight intensive care cots, eight high dependency cots, 12 special care cots and eight transitional care cots.

Additional Services

Birth Reflections Service

Birth Reflections offers women, birthing people and partners the opportunity to reflect on their birth experience and have answered any questions they may have. This service is open to anyone who has birthed at ASPH.

Bereavement and Counselling Service

Our specialist team of Bereavement midwives offer additional support for those who experience a trauma, anxiety, or loss. Our dedicated team offer immediate follow up and consistent support led by the needs of the parent. There is also an offer of 3 initial counselling sessions with a further appropriate referral to community support as required.

Perinatal Mental Health

Within the Trust we have a Perinatal Mental Health Lead Midwife who provides additional support to our birthing population during their pregnancy journey and up to 28 days post-birth. Individuals can be referred from their booking appointment or at any time during their care with us. The Perinatal Mental Health Midwife works in close collaboration withthe Surrey and Borders Partnership Perinatal Service. Their service can provide additional support in preconception, pregnancy and postnatally up to 1 year post birth. This ensures effective multidisciplinary team working to provide comprehensive safe care to birthing people in need of this support.

Outside Abbey Wing

Maternity Services Rated Good by Care Quality Commission

Maternity services at St Peter’s Hospital have been awarded a good rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in its latest report published on Friday 26 September 2025. Inspectors assessed against 30 quality statements looking at how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led the service was and found significant improvements had been made since their last visit in 2023, noting improved governance, risk management and culture.

Read more about the CQC report

Maternity improvements following our CQC inspection

Since our unannounced CQC inspection in January 2023 we have made a significant number of changes to improve our Maternity services for our patients and staff.

Area		We have done
Triage		Changed the staffing template in triage to 2 midwives per shift with a maternity support worker and funded a team leader post. Reviewed admin template to provide 24/7 Labour ward desk cover Implemented an activity board in triage to highlight arrival time, time seen and if breeches. Refurbished triage area to make it more functional and accessible. Reviewed our digital platform to align with BSOTs. Ensured we had an assessment room to facilitate the BSOTs pathway.
Estates and Facilities		Refurbishment Joan Booker Ward Murals installed on labour ward to create a calming birth environment. Community office build, collocated with our Abbey Birth Centre.
Workforce		Employed a Workforce and Development Lead Midwife. Reviewed our maternity establishment using the Birth Rate Plus workforce tool. Second Review underway for more investment into maternity services. Reviewed the salary of our Newly qualified midwives – now offering top band 5 on commencement of employment. Upskilled Obstetric nurses. Automatic job offers for ASPH student midwives. Implemented an international recruitment programme. Invested – to pay our MSWs top band 3 on completion of care certificate and core competencies. Funded the midwifery degree apprentice programme. Approved 56 flexible working agreements.
Students		Reviewed the number of students we can provide a quality education program following the NETS survey. Took the difficult decision to reduce student intake by 5 midwives in each cohort (15 in total over 3 years). Implemented: Student forums, raising concerns inbox, Band 7 buddies, and generic Agency midwife Emora account to sign off skills. Funded Learning Environment Lead role and Clinical practice facilitator.
Newly qualified midwives		Implemented preceptorship framework standards. Funded Learning Environment Lead role and Clinical practice facilitator. Offer holder day implemented.
Wellbeing		Funded places for staff to take part in outdoor wellbeing sessions. Funded a ‘Sinking to Soaring’ Workshop (in work time or paid bank) – Foundations to Better Emotional Health for Midwives and Maternity Services™
Education and training		Funded psychological safety training and human factor training. Funded Peri Health Suturing course for 60 midwives. Purchased £25,000 of simulation equipment funded by NHS England. Reviewed our training programme with psychological safety and civility in mind, whilst meeting the core competency framework version 2. Implemented the MSW Framework upskilling our workforce. Introduced ‘This Midwife Can’ workshops. Introduced Career Cafes. Implemented agency workshops – created opportunities for agency midwives to attend our maternity specific training.