King’s Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital shows ‘significant improvements’

The trust was placed in the regime for failing NHS organisations by the regulator Monitor in October 2013, following concerns over poor care and weak leadership.

The Chief of Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, and his inspectors found improvements across most of the hospital’s services – particularly in medical care, in the emergency department and in the overall leadership – to make the recommendation to Monitor, the body responsible for Foundation Trusts. This “has helped to drive very considerable improvements in the quality and safety of patient care in a relatively short period of time”, it added.

A spokesman for the Care Quality Commission said full reports will be published in due course.

Deborah Ivanova, CQC’s Head of inspection for Adult Social Care, said: “People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care”.

“Providers of those services should take the publication of the inadequate rating as a signal that immediate action is required to improve the service”.

“There is good communication throughout the organisation and the morale and culture of the organisation has improved”.

However, inspectors also highlighted some areas of concern, including medicine storage, staffing levels and record keeping.

Littlestone Lodge in Bow Arrow Lane, Dartford, was criticised by the CQC after an inspection in March called for “urgent improvements” to its 16-bed continuing care unit. It is rated as “Requires Improvement” for its services being safe and responsive. It would be the eighth trust to come out of the regime, which now contains 13 others.

Inspectors visited the home in an unannounced inspection in June and people in the home gave their views on the service they receive.

As well criticism for the level of service at Littlestone, the CQC also commented on delays in finding beds for mental health patients at another unit in the trust, including one example where a patient had to sleep on a bean bag because a bed was not available. They have taken such a lot of care of me.

THREE care homes in the Bradford district need to improve while a care provider is inadequate, according to the Care Quality Commission’s latest round of inspections.

The trust’s chair Edward Libbey said: “Clearly we are delighted the CQC has recognised the improvements we have made”.

“This marks a huge step on our journey towards excellence in patient experience and care and represents an incredible amount of work by staff at the trust”.

Leon Berry, operations manager for Holden Grange Care group which runs Hillbro, said: “We have rectified all of the three breaches of regulations that were made”.