Ashford and St. Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust has now had its
new enhanced Care Quality Commission inspection. In the past, the CQC relied on
unqualified people; a recipe for disaster.
How did it go this time?
Still a lot of problems missed, but it’s difficult to get
things right in a short inspection. With a few exceptions, hospitals aren’t
good or bad; there are good departments and bad.
The report spots that things are worse at St. Peter’s than
they are at Ashford…then again Ashford isn’t where it’s all happening.
There are areas of real concern – including patient safety,
record keeping. You’ve heard all about them from me here before. But seriously;
not looking after medicines properly?
The real problem (it was for me when the accident and
emergency sent me home with an obviously broken ankle) is that they have
problems finding and keeping good staff.
There are reasons why good people leave but this is probably
not the best place to explain it!
Here’s Eagle Radio’s report;
Eagle Radio
- News - Concerns raised about staff shortages at Surrey hospital trust
10th March
2015
The results
from a recent Care Quality Commission report for Ashford and St
Peter's
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have been released.
A team of
42 inspectors rated the trust as 'Good' overall.
It
highlighted its effective, responsive, caring and well-led approach to patients.
However, it
was rated as 'Requires Improvement' for being safe.
For each
individual hospital, Ashford Hospital was rated 'Good', while St
Peter's
Hospital in Chertsey was rated as 'Requires Improvement.'
The trust
was inspected under a new, more rigorous regime by the CQC.
It found
its new senior leadership team promoted good quality care, and its staff were
kind compassionate and caring in the accident and emergency department.
It also
witnessed safety and quality of services were a priority for the trust, which
was reflected by staff at every level.
The Surrey
trust had a strong reporting culture and was keen to share learning from
incidents.
But the
inspection also found the biggest single safety issue was the impact of staff
shortages and the difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff.
While the
trust used agency, locums and bank staff to help deal with the shortfalls, safe
staffing levels were not being consistently met.
Staff
indicated to inspectors that the issue with staffing levels was putting them
under extra stress and some staff were leaving because of this.
Inspectors
identified a number of areas of outstanding practice across the trust:
The trust
had developed an older people's assessment and liaison team which enhanced the
care of the frail, elderly patients. The specialist team's care had managed to
decrease the number of admissions to specialty wards, and also contributed to
fewer patients being readmitted.
The
electronic patient record system in the intensive care unit was outstanding.
Patients benefitted from comprehensive,
detailed records in one place, where all staff could gain access and update
them at all times.
The trauma
and orthopaedic unit had set up an early discharge team to reduce the length of
stay for patients with hip fractures. Patients had continuity of care from the
hospital in to their own home as they had the same staff. This reduced their
length of stay in hospital.
There was
good joint working between the bereavement services, chaplaincy services and
the mortuary services to ensure as little distress as possible to bereaved
relatives, with caring staff throughout the hospital who were seen to treat
patients at the end of their lives and their relatives with dignity and respect.
The trust
has been told that it must make improvements in nine areas including:
The trust
must ensure that medicines were stored at temperatures that provide effective
treatment.
All trained
paediatric nurses must be up to date with medicines management training.
Patients'
records must be kept securely and located promptly when required.
All
departments must have sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, skilled and
experienced nursing staff on the units and the outreach team to safeguard the
health, safety and welfare of patients at all times.
In the
critical care department, there must be a full range of safety, quality and
performance data collected, evaluated and reported. The trust must ensure it
has sight of this data at board level.
CQC's Chief
Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said: "I am pleased
to report that when we inspected the hospitals run by Ashford and St Peters
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, much of what we saw was good.
"It
was clear that staff took great pride in their work, and that they felt the leadership
team were approachable.
"Teams
communicated well with each other, and we saw some good examples of collaborative
working to improve the treatment and care people received.
"We,
also found areas where the trust needs to make improvements - in particular the
retention and recruitment of staff in a number of clinical departments.
"While
the trust appears to be maintaining its upward trajectory - it still needs to
ensure that people using its services receive good quality treatment and care
at all times.
"People
are entitled to receive treatment and care in services which are consistently
safe, effective, caring and responsive to their needs.
"The
trust has told us they have listened to our inspectors' findings and begun to
take action where it is required.
"We
will return in due course to check that the improvements needed have been made."
'We
recognise there are areas that need improving'
I hope the CQC keeps the pressure on them.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
No comments:
Post a Comment