Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital chief calls for full inspection

The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital was rated overall as 'requires improvement' following an inspection in 2015.

Inspectors said that caring was good across the board and good in surgery overall. But medical care, critical care and outpatients and diagnostics were all marked as requires improvement.

Members of the hospital's trust board were told this week that the next inspection was expected later this year, although the process was slightly different in that inspectors were likely only to re-visit those sections in which there had been concern.

But Mark Brandreth, the hospital's chief executive, said he had some concerns over new streamlined inspection process.

"I find it strange they might inspect us without looking at our theatres, given our focus on surgery. Surgery must account for between 60-70 per cent of our work but they may not look at it.

"At the moment our surgery is said to be good when I know that there are areas that are outstanding. Myself and the chairman will be lobbying to try to ensure that the visit sees the inspectors look at everything."

He said the hospital had been focusing on improving areas that had been labelled at requires improvement.

Trust Chairman, Frank Collins said that surgery accounted for not only a large percentage of the work, but also the patients and the staff.

Consultant and director, Mr Steve White wants to see a shift away from national targets for the length of stay a patient has in hospital.

He said that the hospital performed well in the length of stay for patients having simple operations.

"We do a lot of complex work here and while we may keep patients in for longer, we do not have a high re-admission figure. It is far better to keep patients until they are ready to go home than discharge them and see them re-admitted a few days later."

Changes to doors in bathrooms and an awareness day are part of a move to prevent falls at the hospital.

Members of the trust board heard that doors on the bathrooms in wards will be altered to open outwards to give patients more room to manoeuvre.

There will also be a 'baywatch' policy on wards, more assessment of the fragility of patients and post fall meetings.

The changes follow concerns about the number of patients who have suffered a fall at the hospital.

Ann McEvoy trust board member said investigation showed it was not always frail patients involved but patients who were maybe impatient and wanting to progress mobility faster than they were able.