CQC’s new Chief Inspector of Hospitals asks people in the East Midlands to tell him about the care provided at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

18 November 2013

CQC’s new Chief Inspector of Hospitals asks people in the East Midlands to tell him about the care provided at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

England's new chief inspector of hospitals is inviting members of the public in the East Midlands to tell his inspection panel what they think of the services provided by the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Their views and experiences will help inspectors decide what to look at when they inspect the Queen’s Medical Centre, City Hospital and Ropewalk House.

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the first 18 hospital trusts to be inspected under radical changes being introduced by the Care Quality Commission. The formal inspection will start on Monday, 25 November.

The Chief Inspector, Professor Sir Mike Richards, announced in July that he will lead significantly larger inspection teams headed up by clinical and other experts that include trained members of the public.

To ensure the views of patients and the local community are properly heard, the inspectors will be holding two listening events as follows:

• Tuesday, 26 November, 6.30pm, at The University of Nottingham, Senate Room, Nottingham Conferences, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RJ.
• Wednesday, 27 November, 6.30pm, Bulwell Forest Golf Club, Hucknall Rd, Nottingham NG6 9LQ.
• Members of the public are being encouraged to attend the listening event to find out more about the inspection process, to tell the team about their experiences of care with the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, and where they would like to see improvements made in the future.

Sir Mike said: "The new inspections are designed to provide people with a clear picture of the quality of the services in their local hospital, exposing poor or mediocre care as well as highlighting the many hospitals providing good and excellent care.

"We know there is too much variation in quality – and these new in-depth inspections will allow us to get a much more detailed picture of care in hospitals than ever before.

"Of course we will be talking to doctors and nurses, hospital managers and patients in the hospital. But it is vital that we also hear the views of the people who have had care at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, or anyone who wants to share information with us, to help us plan our inspection, and so focus on those things that really matter to people who depend on this service.

“This is your opportunity to tell me and my team what you think, and make a difference to the NHS services in the local area”

Anyone who is unable to attend the listening events but wishes to give their views to the inspection team can do this in a number of ways:

By email: enquiries@cqc.org.uk

By letter: CQC National Customer Service Centre, Citygate, Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4PA

Sir Mike's inspection team is expected to look in detail at eight key services areas: A&E; maternity, paediatrics; acute medical and surgical pathways; care for the frail elderly; end of life care; and outpatients.

CQC is asking people who would like to attend the listening event to fill in an online form at www.cqclisteningevents.org.uk or call 03000 616161. This will help us with our planning for the event. However, the regulator stresses that people are free to turn up on the evening even if they haven’t registered. If people can’t make it to the event, we still want to hear about their experience of care and they can do this by using the ‘tell us about your care’ form on our website.

A full report of the inspectors’ findings will be published by the Care Quality Commission.

ENDS

For media enquiries, call the CQC press office on 020 7448 9401 during office hours or out of hours on 07917 232 143.

For general enquiries, call 03000 61 61 61.

Notes to editors

Sir Mike has identified 18 NHS trusts representing the variation of care in hospitals in England. These will be the first hospitals to test the new inspection regime.

The variety of trusts selected will help to test CQC’s new inspection model, which will be developed and refined this year, following our consultation. It will also help us to develop the new ratings scheme for hospitals. For hospitals not covered by the new approach, we will complete our inspection programme for 2013-14, focussing on one or a small number of specific services with the hospital that we think are most in need of inspection.

The first four trusts which featured in the new programme of inspections are; Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust and The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust.

This event is being held to enable members of the public to share their experiences of care with members of the inspection team. These discussions will take place in small groups.

We would like people to be able to talk freely without the fear that their names or their stories will become public. Therefore we ask the media to respect our request to not attend these events.

We will make sure there are other opportunities to talk to panel members about the inspection.