Improvement is needed at Trust

The organisation which looks after Peterborough’s hospital has been rated as ‘requires improvement’.

North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust provides hospital-based services for patients. It covers three main hospitals: HInchingbrooke, Peterborough and Stamford and Rutland Hospital.

The Care Quality Commission inspected the trust and published its report last week.

The inspection took place in July and looked at nine core services provided at the trust at two locations – Peterborough and Hinchingbrooke.

The safety rating was reduced to requiring improvement and the report said it was done for a number of reasons, including: nursing and medical staff not meeting the trust’s compliance target in most courses. There were periods of under-staffing and a heavy reliance on agency, bank and locum staff.

There were also not enough consultants in the critical care unit with intensive care qualifications.

But the report said that most staff understood their responsibilities to identify and report incidents and safeguarding concerns.

The report said that patients at the end of their life did not always achieve their preferred place of death and a high percentage had no preferred place recorded.

It also said that staff worked together to benefit patients.

The element of caring was rated as good as patients were mostly treated with dignity, respect and kindness.

“We found outstanding examples of caring in end of life care services,” said the report.

It was also rated as good in terms of being responsive.

However, it was noted that the trust was not meeting the standard that people should not wait more than an hour of arriving in the emergency department to receiving care.

The well-led services criteria was also reduced to needing improvement in the latest report.

“Leaders did not have sufficient capacity to focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.”

Peterborough Hospital itself was rated as good while Hinchingbrooke required improvement.

The trust was noted as having outstanding practice in both surgery and end of life care. As a whole, the trust was good under the headings of caring and responsive, but required improvement in safety, effectiveness and being well-led.