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England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, has published his first report on the quality of care provided by The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

Under its new inspection model, CQC has given individual ratings to each of the core services at the trust’s hospitals; urgent and emergency services (A&E), medical care (including older people’s care), surgery, critical care, services for children and young people, end of life care and outpatients and diagnostic imaging.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was rated as Requires Improvement overall, following CQC’s inspection which took place on 14, 15 and 16 October 2014. CQC’s inspection team informed the trust of its concerns immediately after the inspection so that it could take steps to improve.

The trust was rated as Good with regard to whether services were caring and Requires Improvement with regard to whether services were safe, effective, well-led and responsive.

Full reports for the trust are available here. 

Across the trust, the inspection team found areas of outstanding practice. These included:

• The trust had outstanding safeguarding procedures in place. The safeguarding team had links in every department where children were seen, with safeguarding information shared across the trust.
• The trust had appointed an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA). The post had been established through funding from the Police Crime Commissioner, due to excellent outcomes recorded by the trust.
• The compassionate and caring dedication for end of life care within the renal service was outstanding, especially the development and introduction of the ‘my wishes’ document, for supporting people who had been diagnosed with an ‘end stage’ decision.

The trust has been told that it must take action to improve in the following areas:

• Levels of nursing staff across A&E critical care, the labour ward and end of life services must be reviewed to ensure they are safe and meet the requirements of the service.
• The trust must ensure that all staff consistently report incidents and receive feedback, so that service development and learning can take place.
• The trust is consistently failing to meet the target of treating 95% of patients at the accident and emergency department within four hours. The trust must take steps to ensure it meets this national target.
• The trust must ensure that all staff on the wards have access to and are trained to provide appropriate end of life care to patients.
• The trust must improve the environment in the mortuary at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, including the main area, fridge and storage capacity, the relative’s area, entrance area and viewing rooms. The environment around the mortuary at the Princess Royal Hospital also needs improving, to ensure people are safe from moving vehicles and uneven ground.
• The trust must review pathways of care for the patients in surgery, to ensure they reflect current good practice guidelines and recommendations.
• The trust must ensure that staff are able to access mandatory training in all areas, particularly in maternity, outpatients, and medicine departments.

CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said:

“We saw that staff at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust been working hard recently to make improvements and we saw several areas of very good practice.

“Overall, this trust was found to require improvement, although we rated it good in terms of its caring staff. The trust has given us assurances that it is making the necessary improvements and we have already witnessed some of these in action.

“People deserve to be treated in services which are safe, caring, effective, well-led, and responsive to their needs and this is what we look at when we carry out our inspections. We will continue to monitor this trust closely and this will include further inspections.”

The report which CQC published yesterday is based on a combination of its inspection findings, information from CQC’s Intelligent Monitoring system, and information provided by patients, the public and other organisations.

CQC inspectors will return to the hospital in due course to check that the required improvements have been made.

For media enquiries contact Helen Gildersleeve, regional engagement officer on 0191 233 3379 or CQC’s press office on 0207 4489401. For general enquiries, call 03000 61 61 61.

Notes to editors

The Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, is leading significantly larger inspection teams than before, headed up by clinical and other experts including trained members of the public. By the end of 2015, CQC will have inspected all acute NHS Trusts in the country with its new inspection model. Whenever CQC inspects it will always ask the following five questions of every service: Is it safe? Is it effective? Is it caring? Is it responsive to people’s needs? Is it well-led?

The Care Quality Commission has already presented its findings to a local Quality Summit, including NHS commissioners, providers, regulators and other public bodies. The purpose of the Quality Summit is to develop a plan of action and recommendations based on the inspection team’s findings.

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.