CQC report highlights good practice at Trust
Following our inspection in March 2016 the CQC has found several areas of outstanding practice at the Trust. Our dedicated Neuro-Rehabilition centre, the Central England Rehabilitation Unit (CERU), was praised for the services they provide to patients who have suffered brain injuries. The inspection team was also very impressed by the on-going work that the Trust’s community nursing team is doing to support diabetic patients manage their conditions efficiently and effectively, which has also been recognised by Diabetes UK. It is also pleasing to see an ‘outstanding’ rating given to the effectiveness of our A&E team and all of these areas of great practice have contributed to an overall rating for all of our community services of ‘Good’.
Areas of the Trust’s acute services that received ‘good’ included; urgent and emergency services, surgery, critical care and children and young people services. The Trust was also commended on a number of areas including; staff satisfaction, A&E performance and the Trust’s clear vision to provide high quality, clinically and cost effective NHS healthcare services that meet the needs of patients and the population that we serve.
The report only found three findings that the CQC listed as ‘important’ and these related to some specific staff training for safeguarding and the mental health capacity act. The other finding related to risk assessments linked to bed rails for patients and all three have been addressed since the visit 5 months ago.
The Trust has requested further information on the End of Life elements within the report as the CQC has not specified any immediate actions. We highlighted the need for improvement in this area to the CQC ahead of the inspection and look forward to their guidance in this area where we will need to work closely with partners.
Despite all of this good practice the overall rating for the Trust was ‘requires improvement’. Whilst this is the same as the vast majority of other NHS providers, this was contrary to many other national indicators that place the Trust in the top 20% across the country. The Trust is appealing the overall rating and seeking it to be changed or an early re-inspection to be scheduled.
Glen Burley, Chief Executive said: “We employ some of the best clinicians in the country and are extremely proud of the services that we deliver across Warwickshire and of our teams that provide them. After reviewing the CQC report from our inspection in March it highlights a number of very positive findings, rating us ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in 46 out of 59 categories.
“The report confirms that we have been recognised nationally in many areas, in particular our work within Accident and Emergency and urgent care to improve patient flow where we are now providing support and advice to other organisations to help them improve safety. The CQC has reported that our culture is positive and open with excellent staff survey results and patient feedback. There were only three recommendations that the CQC highlighted as important and these have all been addressed. We have requested a re-inspection at the earliest convenience with a different inspection team.”
Charles Ashton, Medical Director said: “With over 18 years’ experience as a Medical Director, I am confident of the high quality and safe care that we provide for our patients and service users. During my feedback session with the CQC, they provided assurance that there were no major concerns, this is reflected in the body of the report and I think it is unfortunate that our overall rating does not suggest this. I am proud of the teams and feel our clinical care is excellent.”
Helen Lancaster, Director of Nursing said: “Prior to the inspection we highlighted to the CQC that there were areas we wanted to improve to support patients at the end of their lives. In October 2015 we recruited a new lead Consultant in Palliative Care to make changes to our services and to work with our partners across Warwickshire. In the report there are no immediate actions that the CQC has highlighted to the Trust, however we will use our Quality Summit to discuss this area further with our partner organisations.”
Russell Hardy, Chairman said: “Having worked across many organisations what I have witnessed here is excellent leadership and an extremely positive culture. We are proud of all of our teams. They deliver excellent services day in day out to the people of Warwickshire and it is pleasing to see so many areas highlighted as good practice. We have not seen another inspection report that has so many ‘good’ areas that has not then been rated overall as at least ‘good’.”
Notes to Editors
- -78% of our findings were ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’
- -60% of Trusts have been rated as ‘requires improvement’
