Maternity units at Maidstone and Pembury hospitals could be cleaner and better staffed, the Healthcare Commission has found.

The health watchdog has taken an in depth look at maternity units up and down England, publishing information for each hospital trust.

Overall the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was ranked as "better performing," the best ranking of all trusts in Kent.

But areas it could improve on, according to scores calculated by the commission, after interviewing women were cleanliness, staffing levels and postnatal care of women and babies.

Areas which scored highly included staff training, delivery of antenatal care, the length of time women stayed in the units.

The Healthcare Commission found inadequate staffing to be a recurring theme nationally and the report comes after three separate investigations into deaths at maternity units in two years.

Nationally 89 per cent of women rated their care as good or better.