- NHS hospital
Northampton General Hospital
Report from 1 November 2024 assessment
Ratings - Surgery
Our view of the service
Northampton General Hospital (NGH) provides general acute services for a population of 426,500 in West Northamptonshire and hyper-acute stroke, vascular and renal services to people living throughout the whole of Northamptonshire. The hospital is also an accredited cancer centre and provides cancer services to a wider population of 880,000 who live in Northamptonshire and parts of Buckinghamshire. We rated this service under our previous methodology in February 2023 , where it was rated requires improvement overall. As part of this assessment, we visited The Head and Neck ward, part of the trust's surgical division, which provided post operative surgical care . We visited on 6 March 2024 to check suitable care, equipment and processes were in place to reduce the risk of patients falling. This assessment was prompted by information we held about this service. We assessed a total of 9 quality statements. We looked at all the quality statements under the key questions, Safe, Effective and Well-led. At the last inspection, the surgery service was rated good. During this assessment, we found the service had suitable safeguards in place to reduce the risk of patients falling. However, we raised concerns with the provider about ward layout, discrepancies between care plans and how care was being provided and process in place to monitor compliance with the service's falls prevention policies. After our assessment the service’s rating remained the same.
People's experience of this service
People told us they felt safe on the ward and staff responded promptly to their needs. People told us staff were kind and considerate. People were involved in their care and were aware of why falls alarms were in place. One person who was at risk of falling knew they had to call staff for support when they wanted to stand. Each bed had a call bell within reach of the patient. Patients told us call bells were responded to quickly. We saw that 1 person whose specific condition increased their risk of falling and was fearful of falling. They had a history of falls and an episode of confusion where they had gone wandering. The person was not in an observable bed and the bay was not supervised at the time of our visit. Staff being unable to observe patients put them at risk of falling if they attempted to stand without support. People were supported by staff who knew their specific care needs and which patients were at risk of falling. Staff could explain the falls prevention measures in place and how to support people to use equipment to help them mobilise safely and reduce the risk of falls. Sensor mats were in place to alert staff when a patient who was at risk of falls attempted to stand up. Staff had received training on how to prevent patients from falling and learning from incidents was shared with staff to reduce the risk of similar incidents from happening again.