The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following a focused inspection of medical care services at Kettering General Hospital in March.
In May 2021, CQC carried out a focused inspection at Kettering General Hospital, run by Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, to look at how safe the medical care services were.
Following that inspection, medical care was rated inadequate overall. CQC also served the trust a warning notice demanding improvements in how it managed and assessed risk, learnt from serious incidents, and took action around falls prevention.
Following the latest inspection in March, inspectors found most of the requirements for the warning notice have been met, and the rating for medical care services has improved from inadequate to requires improvement.
Kettering General Hospital was not re-rated during this inspection so its previous overall rating of requires improvement remains.
Bernadette Hanney, CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said:
“I'm pleased leaders and staff have worked hard to successfully improve medical care services at Kettering General Hospital.
“The service has now addressed most of the issues raised, and implemented the improvements needed, although there are still some areas which need to be fully embedded, particularly regarding learning from serious incidents.
“Trust leaders told us they will address our concerns as a matter of urgency, and we will continue to monitor their progress.”
Inspectors found:
- Planned and actual levels of staff did not match on all wards visited. Nurse staffing levels during the inspection were below planned levels on two out of three wards that were visited.
- The service provided mandatory training in falls prevention to all staff and most staff had completed it. Training provided met the learning needs of all staff and the number of falls had reduced.
- Staff recognised and reported incidents and near misses. Managers investigated incidents and shared lessons learned with the team. However, managers did not ensure actions from learning briefings were used across all areas in the service.
- During the inspection in May 2021, the decision to use bedrails was not fully assessed or reviewed within appropriate timescales as outlined in the bedrail provision policy. However, during this inspection inspectors found improvements had been made with ward leaders undertaking weekly random spot checks of bedrail usage.
- The design of the wards visited could impact staff ability to keep patients safe from falling. However, systems were in place to maintain a safe environment and prevent patients from falling. Patients at very high risk of falling patients were in high visibility bays in line of sight of the nurses’ station.
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