Maternity services at Broomfield Hospital have been rated "requires improvement" – just one month after the health watchdog announced services were "inadequate" from an earlier inspection.

The new rating, to be announced officially tomorrow, was from a focused re-inspection in July 2024.

That visit – covering maternity services at Broomfield Hospital – followed one in March last year but the findings from which were only published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on January 3.

That led to accusations that the health watchdog was unnecessarily worrying expectant parents by publishing the report so late that the inadequate rating they gave was already out of date.

Announcing the revised level of care at a meeting of a Health Overview Policy and Scrutiny Committee Chief Nursing and Quality Officer Diane Sarkar said: "Since that inspection the CQC came back in July and re-inspected the progress that had been made and that report is due to be published tomorrow.

"I am pleased to say it is no longer inadequate and it has moved to requires improvement."

She added the trust will request removal of the section 31 notice which gives the CQC the power to change or remove conditions of registration for health and social care providers.

Chairman of the Health Overview Policy & Scrutiny Committee Councillor Jeff Henry said the length of time taken to publish may have led to parents' being "scared to death" despite improvements being made since.

He added at the meeting today the trust had undertaken "a huge turnaround".

The CQC has since apologised for the delay, which itsays "falls far short of what people using services and the trust should be able to expect," blaming changes to its technology.

A spokesman said: "Due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report was not published as soon after the inspection as it should have been. The programme involved changes to the technology CQC uses but resulted in problems with the systems and processes rather than the intended benefits.

"The amount of time taken to publish this report falls far short of what people using services and the trust should be able to expect, and CQC apologises for this. While publication of some reports has been delayed, any immediate action that CQC needed to take to protect people using services will not have been affected and acted on appropriately. CQC is taking urgent steps to ensure that inspection reports are published in a much more timely manner."