19.10.16
Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust placed in special measures
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust has been placed in special measures after the CQC rated it inadequate.
The trust received ‘inadequate’ ratings for being safe, responsive and well-led, with inspectors warning that staffing levels were below the level needed to deliver care.
It was also rated ‘requires improvement’ for being effective and ‘good’ for being caring.
Professor Sir Mike Richards, the CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, said: “We found a number of concerns when we inspected the services run by The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust and I have made a recommendation to NHS Improvement that the trust should be placed into special measures.
“Long waits in the emergency department and capacity issues in the wards meant that patients were not always seen in a timely manner, with many patients in the emergency department breaching four hour targets. Ambulance handover delays were also much worse than expected for the emergency department.”
The latest NHS monthly performance figures showed the service as a whole is struggling to cope with intense pressure. In particular, it has failed to meet the four-hour target for A&E waiting times for over a year.
In some places at Princess Alexandra, wards did not declare how many staff or beds they had overnight to try and ease the workloads as a consequence of the extreme pressure on services.
The CQC report also found that there was a “disconnect” between staff and matron level management. All the members of the executive team had different visions, risks and strategies for the future, which inspectors said did not suggest they had a cohesive vision.
The CQC did, however, highlight a number of areas of good practice, including improvements in the children’s ward and efforts to address the backlog and outstanding pregnancy termination and maternity services.
It made a number of recommendations to the trust. These included ensuring that the fit and proper persons process was ratified across the trust, reviewing risk management processes and ensuring urgent improvements to the safeguarding children’s processes.
Phil Morley, chief executive of the trust, said: “We are of course disappointed with this rating. We know we deliver good care here and that patients have good outcomes from their treatment.
“We know the hospital isn't perfect. Our emergency department, like many others, is very busy and capacity across the hospital means too frequently patients have unacceptable delays.
“However, our patients should be in no doubt our staff are 100% committed to delivering good care and we are pleased this was recognised by the CQC.”
The CQC’s latest annual report found that 5% of hospital services have received an ‘inadequate’ rating and 23% have been rated ‘requires improvement’.
(Image c. Chris Radburn from PA Archive and PA Images)
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