England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Barnsley NHS Foundation Trust as Good following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission. Overall, the trust rating has improved from Requires Improvement.
Between 17 October and 19 October 2017 CQC inspected the trusts urgent and emergency, medical, surgical and children and young people’s services, as part of its planned programme of hospital inspections.
At trust level, the overall rating had improved from Requires Improvement to Good. Caring, effectiveness, responsiveness were all rated as Good and safety remained the same at Requires Improvement. Inspectors noted that the provision of safe care for adults and children with mental health conditions was not robust enough.
Although staff told us they understood their responsibilities in relation to safeguarding children and young people, inspectors were not assured that vulnerable children, particularly those with a mental health condition, would be identified by the trust in a timely or robust way. Staff were not consistently following the trust’s safeguarding children policy. However, there had been improvements in safety for both medicine and surgery.
CQC inspected urgent and emergency services as the department had been rated as Requires Improvement at the last inspection. At this inspection the rating had improved to Good. It was clear that the service had addressed previous recommendations.
Patients that did not attend ED by ambulance now had an initial assessment undertaken by a suitably qualified healthcare professional in accordance with national guidance. In addition the department had increased the number of registered sick children’s nurses (RSCN) from three to nine nurses. RSCN’s worked from 7am to midnight.
Surgery had improved from Requires Improvement to Good. Inspectors saw evidence that the service investigated serious incidents thoroughly and monitored the impact of recommendations for improvement by following-up on each action.
CQC has identified areas where the trust must improve, including, at trust level, they should ensure that medical staff complete mandatory training to meet the trust’s set standard of 90%. In addition, in emergency services, the trust must ensure that staff are appropriately trained to support patients who attend the department with mental health conditions.
Ellen Armistead Deputy Chief Inspector, Hospitals for the North, said:
“Since our last inspection at Barnsley NHS Foundation Trust, in July 2015, the rating for the trust has improved from Requires Improvement to Good. The trust are to be congratulated for their dedication and hard work, this represents very good progress."
“Since the last inspection we found the trust had taken steps to leadership across all services at ward level and above. Staff spoke highly of their line managers and told us they felt listened to."
“Surgery had improved and had outstanding features such as the use of technology and a proactive approach to understanding the needs of patients. The trust had applied measures to manage access and flow in the emergency department, these included providing consultants with the autonomy to admit patients."
“The trust had responded well to our recommendations and actions from the July 2015 inspection. It is clear that patients are receiving improved services. The number of patients waiting in the emergency department between four and 12 hours from the decision to admit until being admitted had reduced significantly since December 2016 and was better than the England average. No patients had waited over 12 hours since January 2017."
“It is clear the trust has the vision and leadership to sustain improvement, their track record of improvement since the last inspection demonstrates that they have a clear strategy and I look forward to seeing further progress at their next inspection.”
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The trust are to be congratulated for their dedication and hard work, this represents very good progress
Ellen Armistead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals