Shropshire health trust needs to improve, says report

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) watchdog said Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust had to do better in four out of five key areas.

The trust responsible for the county's community hospitals, including Whitchurch and Ludlow, has been given a 'requires improvement' rating overall.

The report was made public today following an inspection that took place in March this year.

The CQC team was asked to rank the trust based on whether the services they provided were safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

Read the full CQC report on Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust here

Only the caring element received a 'good' rating, with staff praised throughout the report for treating patients with 'kindness, dignity and respect'.

Inspectors said they observed many areas of good care across the trust.

But inspectors said there were insufficient numbers of suitably qualified, and experienced staff to meet the needs of people using the service within the children and adolescent mental health service's learning disability team.

They also said staffing and skill mix levels within each community nursing team were not reviewed systematically and at regular intervals to ensure that patients' needs were met.

The trust was also criticised for not having a strategy for end of life care.

Today the head of Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust pledged that work would be done to "drive improvement".

Chief executive Jan Ditheridge said: "An inspection on this scale is a first for Shropcom and we welcome it in our persistent drive for patient centred quality improvement.

"While the overall rating was requires improvement, many of our services and CQC domains were rated 'good'.

"We weren't surprised that all of our services were rated 'good' for caring and I was pleased to see that children's and dental services were recognised with a 'good' rating for all of their domains.

"We know there is more work to do to achieve at least 'good' in some of our other services and we will use this report to continue to drive that improvement.

"With the support of our commissioners and partners we know are capable of more and better.

"We must not forget we have highly skilled, committed staff working in challenging environments, doing amazing things every day. Our 1,600 members of staff deliver services that have 750,000 patient contacts every year from more than 110 sites spread across an area of nearly 1,350 square miles, which is a significant challenge for a small NHS trust.

"Despite these challenges, our staff have been rated us as Good for caring by our patients and carers, which mean people feel they are well supported and cared for and treated with dignity and respect – and this really is at the heart of everything we aim to do."

Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust provides a range of community-based health services for adults and children in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, and some services to people in surrounding areas.

It has four community hospitals, four minor injury units and seven community dental locations.

CQC's chief inspector of hospitals, professor Sir Mike Richards, said: "Our inspectors found that several improvements were needed at Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust but we also observed many areas of good care across several departments.

"There were insufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff to meet the needs of people using the service within the children and adolescent mental health service's learning disability team."