Trust responds to the report of its inspection by the Care Quality Commission
Responding to the Care Quality Commission’s inspection report for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, published today (Tuesday 16 December), Trust chief executive Dr Tracey Batten said:
“While we are disappointed with our overall rating of ‘requires improvement’, we think the report is extremely constructive. It clearly sets out our challenges while also recognising the positive impact of our work over the past year and highlighting the great care that we already provide.
“We acknowledge that there are a few areas, such as cleanliness in St Mary’s A&E, that have simply not been acceptable and there can be no excuse for that. But we want to assure patients that this is the exception and that we have acted immediately to address the most pressing issues raised. For example, we have already put in extra staff support and refurbished the A&E at St Mary’s Hospital – with new flooring and lighting, more sinks and additional cleaning rotas. The CQC has now re-inspected St Mary’s A&E and has confirmed that the required improvements have been made.
“Overall, the findings show that our major improvement programmes – such as speeding up our recruitment processes, investing in better patient admin and IT systems, making care pathways more patient centred and building staff leadership and engagement – are moving us in the right direction. It’s clear that we now have to redouble our efforts in a number of areas and services.
“The report also shows that there is a lot of great care and clinical practice that we can build on. Most importantly, our staff are consistently seen by patients as caring and compassionate. And we achieve some of the best results for patients, including in our specialist centres for stroke and major trauma, as well as one of the lowest rates of patient deaths in the whole of the country. Our maternity and gynaecology services and our end of life care were rated as good across the whole Trust.
“We have already begun work on an action plan in response to the CQC report, which is due to be submitted in mid January. We hope to work closely over the coming months with our partners and stakeholders, and especially with patients and local communities, to move all of our ratings to good and ultimately to outstanding. Our initial action plan will be presented at our next public Trust Board meeting on Wednesday 28 January 2015.”
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