England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as Good following inspections by the Care Quality Commission.
The trust provides acute healthcare services for 420,000 people across Mansfield, Ashfield, Newark, Sherwood and parts of Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. It has three hospital sites; King’s Mill Hospital, Newark Hospital and Mansfield Community Hospital. In addition, some outpatients services are run from Ashfield Community Health Village.
Between 16 and 18 April 2018, a team of CQC inspectors visited the trust’s core services. Inspectors rated the care provided by staff to be Outstanding regarding whether services were caring, Good regarding whether services were responsive, effective and well-led and Requires Improvement regarding whether services were safe. Ten out of the trust’s ten services were rated as good overall.
The trust was previously rated Requires Improvement following an inspection in July 2016. The trust has now improved across several services with areas of good and outstanding care highlighted by inspectors.
Inspectors were impressed by the compassionate, inclusive and effective leadership at all levels across the trust. In particular, the urgent and emergency and outpatients services were rated as Outstanding for being well-led.
Feedback from patients and those close to them was mostly positive about the way staff treated them and they were able to access care and treatment in a timely way.
CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said
“Overall, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides good care to the population that it serves. The trust can be proud of many of the services that it manages and the improvements it has made.
“It has come a long way since we last inspected and the effective leadership at all levels has played a strong role in this improvement journey. Staff morale was consistently high throughout this inspection and there were several areas of outstanding practice across services.
“The senior leadership team was stable and has worked hard since the last inspection to ensure trust wide improvements were embedded.
“The effectiveness of the trust board had effectively developed into a positive team working ethic, with appropriate levels of challenge, debate and support. We found a strong and positive focus on leadership development at different levels in the organisation, especially middle management level.
“We were particularly impressed by the improvements made within the emergency and outpatients services. A new system had been introduced in A&E to ensure patients were monitored effectively when waiting longer than four hours. In addition, the trust had purchased overnight ambulance provision to ensure patients could return home if it was safe to do so. This prevented patients from unnecessary stays in the department.
“The kindness and compassion demonstrated by staff in all roles and at all levels of responsibility was of a consistently high standard and each team demonstrated how they routinely exceeded expectations.
“For example, at Mansfield Hospital a healthcare assistant attended the ward on their day off to help a patient with hair styling before they were discharged. Another staff member had provided weekend accommodation and care for the relative of a patient who was very distressed over their transition to end of life care.
“There were some areas where improvements need to be made. The trust has told us they have listened to our inspectors’ findings and we anticipate that the executive team, with the support of their staff, will work to deliver these improvements on behalf of all of their patients. We will return in due course to check on the progress that they have made.”
Full details of the ratings, including a ratings grid, are given in the report published online; read the report.
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The trust can be proud of many of the services that it manages and the improvements it has made
CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker