Winchester & Chandler's Ford MP, Steve Brine, has said staff at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital need support after a critical CQC report was published this morning.
England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has called for improvements at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust following an inspection in June and July this year to check the quality of three core services: urgent and emergency care, medical care and surgery. The CQC also looked specifically at management and leadership to answer the key question: Is the trust well led?
As a result of the inspection the trust has now been rated "Requires Improvement" overall. For caring the trust was rated as Good but for safety, effectiveness, responsiveness and well led it was rated as Requires Improvement.
Following the inspection, CQC used its urgent enforcement powers to impose six conditions on the trust’s registration:
- There must be an effective system in place to assess and monitor the ongoing care and treatment to patients while in the emergency department.
- The trust must ensure that there are enough suitably qualified staff on duty in the emergency department at all times to care for children.
- The provider must ensure that children and young people are cared for in an environment which is tailored to meet and protect their needs.
- The trust must ensure at least one member of staff is available each shift who is trained in advanced paediatric life support.
- The trust must ensure that there are enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff deployed throughout the emergency department. The staffing levels and deployment of staff must be reviewed and adapted as required at regular intervals throughout the day.
- The trust must submit a report to CQC which demonstrates the actions taken to ensure that the conditions listed above are complied.
The Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said; “Since our last inspection, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has not sustained the momentum and embed the improvements that we saw at that inspection. As a result of this, the trust’s overall rating has moved from Good to Requires Improvement.
“I am pleased to note that we did see some outstanding practice and the trust has a strong and engaged workforce but we have now made it clear to the trust where it must take action to improve."
Trust Chief Executive, Alex Whitfield added; "I am glad that the inspectors recognised the dedication and compassion of our staff. I see this around our hospitals every day. However, it is disappointing that there are a number of areas where our services are not consistently at the standard we would want for our patients. We take the safety of our patients and their care very seriously and we have already made changes responding to the conditions highlighted by the inspectors and have further improvements planned. We will continue to work tirelessly to put patient care and safety at the heart of everything we do.
“We have already changed the emergency department layout so that patients waiting are more visible to clinical teams, and can be more easily observed. We have also increased the frequency of checks on patients so that we can pick up more quickly when they are becoming poorly.
“We recognise we have problems with our ageing buildings and this has been thrown most sharply into focus in our emergency departments where we have seen a 25% increase in attendances in recent years. We are delighted to have secured £4 million in capital funding from the government to help further improve the layout of our emergency departments and acute assessment units and increase their capacity. We know we are looking after more elderly frail people who are sicker and hence need to be admitted and this has had an impact across the whole Trust.
“We absolutely strive to do our best for each and every one of our patients, but we know that we need to do even better. Our focus has always been on providing outstanding care, and that is true now more than ever.”
And local MP Steve Brine said; "This CQC report is worrying but I don’t think it comes as a huge surprise because of the pressures our emergency department has been under and the ageing building it inhabits. What we must not do in response is sensationalize the findings or join the dots in a way that draws the wrong conclusions because many dedicated and caring people work at the RHCH and they deserve the space and the support to turn things around.
“Many of my constituents attending the ED, and indeed myself as a patient with my son recently, report a positive experience at our hospital and certainly the NHS’ version of Trip Advisor backs that up. I have already met with the Chief Executive to hear the work they’ve done since the inspection back in June and how they plan to use the £4.06m the Department of Health has this month given the Trust for capital investment.”
Pictured; Steve Brine on a visit to the RHCH yesterday during which he met with Chief Executive Alex Whitfield and dropped in on the hospital pharmacy team.
More information ...
Full details of the ratings are given on the CQC website at: https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RN5
