Care Quality Commission rates Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust as Requires Improvement

England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust as Requires Improvement following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

CQC inspected services provided by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust between 4 September and 11 October 2018.

CQC has rated the trust as Requires Improvement overall. It was rated as Outstanding for being caring and Requires Improvement for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led.

The trust’s previous rating was Requires Improvement, following an inspection in March 2017.

CQC's Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said: "Our overall rating for Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust has remained as Requires Improvement as we did not find sufficient change across the trust, compared with our inspection in 2017. More work is clearly needed to improve the way in which the trust delivers care.

"Inspectors found improvements were needed with regard to cleanliness and infection control, the way patient records and medicines were being stored and managed and the communication and governance around the management of risks.

"However, the trust is rated as Outstanding for the key question we ask about whether services are caring or not and we found that staff were passionate about the people they served. It was evident in everything they did that care was genuinely and truly patient-centred. This included community services.

"We have reported our findings back to the trust and the trust leadership knows what it needs to do to bring about improvement.

"We will continue to monitor the trust and our inspectors will return at a later date to check on what progress has been made."

The CQC has told the trust it must take action in several areas, including:

• It must ensure compliance with the requirements of the fit and proper person’s regulation.
• Ensure the effectiveness of governance arrangements and the board is consistently informed of and cited on the management of risks across the trust.
• Records and personal information must be kept secure at all times.
• Effective systems must be in place to prevent, detect and control the spread of infection.
• Emergency departments must be suitable for the purpose for which they are being used, including in the treatment of children and young people.
• The trust must ensure the proper and safe management of medicines and resuscitation trollies must be tamperproof.
• Sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff must be deployed in order to meet the needs of patients 24 hours a day in the trust’s emergency departments.
• Systems must be in place to prevent avoidable mixed sex breaches where patients are not receiving specialised care.
• Ligature free rooms must be kept ligature free and staff must be aware of the risks in the rooms.
• Systems must be in place for the trust to communicate how feedback from complaints has led to improvements.
• The trust must ensure staff are trained in mental health, learning disability or autism to reflect the patients that are being cared for.
• The trust must ensure all staff have regard for the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards 2010 when assessing patients and delivering care.

Inspectors saw several areas of outstanding practice, including:

• The domestic violence team had innovative ways of discretely discussing safety with patients and providing information to people who may be at risk of domestic abuse.
• The trust had implemented a blue pillow initiative which reduced the amount of heel pressure sores.
• The Serenity birth centre had been awarded the Beacon award from the national maternity unit’s forum. This acknowledged the success of the centre in providing individualised care.
• The infant feeding team had developed prompt cards with information on feeding new babies, which other trusts had purchased to use in their own maternity departments.
• All patients with swabs in situ in maternity were required to wear a fluorescent bracelet to indicate this. This ensured all staff were aware and action could be taken to ensure the appropriate removal of swabs.

Read the full report on the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust profile page.

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