Chief Inspector of Hospitals publishes his findings on Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust

England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals has published his first report on the quality of care provided by Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust.

Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust was one of the first community health trusts to be inspected under radical changes which have been introduced by CQC to provide a more detailed picture of healthcare than ever before.

Overall the CQC inspection found that the trust provided safe and effective community health services which were well-led with a clear focus on quality. However, the regulator found some weaknesses in risk and quality reporting and action taken following the identification of risks at Newton Community Hospital.

The inspection team included CQC inspectors, doctors, nurses, a health visitor, occupational therapist, patient experts by experience and senior managers. The team spent three days visiting the trust’s hospitals, dental services and wider community services during February.

They examined the care provided in community services for children and families including health visiting and school nursing, services for adults with long-term conditions, district nursing services, community rehabilitation services, services for adults requiring inpatient services and services for people receiving end-of-life care.

Patients to whom inspectors spoke were overwhelmingly positive about the quality of their care, and inspectors saw staff treating patients with compassion, dignity and respect.

The inspection team found several areas of good practice such as the trust’s Patient Partner’s programme through which a group of 150 patients work with the trust to help develop services across the community.

Staff were committed to providing high quality care and there was good joint working between the trust and partner organisations to address local public health issues such as child obesity and breast feeding.

Areas for improvement included the need to develop more effective risk reporting mechanisms at Newton Community Hospital; making sure that training is available to fully meet the needs of staff working within the trust’s inpatient facilities, and ensuring staff are provided with clear information regarding the management of vacancies and recruitment to roles, so that vacancies are filled without delay.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “Overall, we found services provided by Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust were safe, although there is need to improve systems for sharing learning from incidents across the trust as a whole.

“Most of the patients and carers we met described staff as caring and compassionate and felt that services were responsive to people’s needs.  We noticed that staff worked well in multidisciplinary teams across organisations to provide support to patients in the community.

"There was some evidence that waiting times could be longer than expected, and this was a source of frustration for some patients. I am sure the trust will want to address that as a priority."

Ends

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For general enquiries, call 03000 61 61 61.

Notes to editors

Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust provides community and specialist services to people living in Ashton, Leigh and Wigan, Halton and St Helens and Warrington. The trust provides services for over 830,000 people.

CQC has published reports on services at Newton Community Hospital in Merseyside, Padgate House in Warrington, Bevan House in Wigan, and by the wider community health services situated in Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside.

Read the full reports now.

The Care Quality Commission has already presented its findings to a local Quality Summit, including NHS commissioners, providers, regulators and other public bodies. The purpose of the Quality Summit is to develop a plan of action and recommendations based on the inspection team’s findings.