Unannounced hospital inspection report
A surprise inspection at Telford’s A&E took place while there was no children’s nurse on duty, a report says.
CCG executive directors of Quality Maggie Bayley and Chris Morris say unannounced visits were paid to both the Princess Royal Hospital and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital within five days of a meeting by the trust’s improvement plan oversight group.
The visits aimed “to test if the immediate actions put in place by the trust were being enacted”, and their findings “continued to align” with those of the Care Quality Commission, who rated the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust as “inadequate” in late 2018.
NHS Improvement put SaTH in special measures around the same time.
Ms Bayley’s and Ms Morris’s report will be discussed by the Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group board when it meets on Tuesday. Its Shropshire counterparts will meet the following day.
After SaTH was put in special measures, a “Safety Oversight and Assurance Group” was set up to the trust improvement plan. It has met regularly since November 2018.
Ms Bayley and Ms Morris write that its meeting on February 18 this year heard four emergency department consultants were in post and were being supplemented by locum doctors and with “mitigating actions in place”. Sepsis screening and the use of antibiotics were also said to “require improvement”.
The write: “The CCGs’ Executive Director of Quality and Head of Quality carried out unannounced visits to both emergency departments on the weekend of February 22 and 23 to test if the immediate actions put in place by the trust were being enacted to manage patient safety, privacy and dignity.
“The outcome of this was that paediatric nurse cover was not in place at the PRH and the audit outcomes from records reviewed continued to align with the CQC’s previous findings.”
Ms Morris and Ms Bayley write: “The CCGs need to continue to work closely with the trust, regulators NHS England, NHS Improvement and the CQC, along with Healthwatch organisations in the monitoring of actions and improvement plans, testing compliance in real time as well as through contractual routes to ensure the required improvements are progressed and sustained.”
