The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated CVS Health Limited (Trinity House) in Eastbourne, East Sussex, inadequate and suspended the service for a period of eight weeks.
CVS Health Limited (Trinity House) provides cardiac diagnostic and consultancy services to private patients in Kent and East Sussex. It is owned and managed by a team of partner consultant cardiologists and services are delivered by qualified and experienced local NHS cardiologists and physiologists.
CQC visited the service in June to inspect it for the first time. Afterwards, due to serious concerns about the safety of the service, inspectors took immediate action to limit the risk of harm to people by suspending the service for eight weeks to ensure that the provider could improve safety at the location before caring for patients again.
The service was rated inadequate overall and inadequate for being safe and well-led. It was rated requires improvement for being effective and responsive, and good for being caring.
Amanda Williams, CQC’s head of hospital inspections, said:
“We had several serious concerns when we inspected CVS Health Limited (Trinity House) recently. So much so that we felt it necessary to suspend the service for eight weeks to protect people from risk of harm and to give the provider time to make urgent improvements.
“For example, staff had not been trained in advanced life support and reception staff were not trained on how to respond to an emergency. We also found that emergency equipment was not checked regularly to ensure it was always ready for immediate use, and the defibrillator had not been checked since April 2021. This could have catastrophic consequences if the equipment failed when attempting to resuscitate someone.
“There was also no routine checking of the emergency call bell in the treatment rooms. In addition, some vital emergency medication was also out of date, leaving patients at risk of serious harm. For a service which specialises in cardiac conditions, and mainly treats older patients whose risk of a cardiac emergency is higher, this is completely unacceptable.
“We were also told by staff that although basic risk assessments were carried out when a patient arrived at the clinic by checking the patient’s referral letter, there had been occasions when the wrong patient was called to a clinical room, which could have ended up in the wrong procedure being carried out on that person.
“We have told the provider that it must now make urgent improvements to address all our concerns and the service has been temporarily closed to give them time to do this. We will review the progress made at the end of the eight-week closure and reinspect to check that sufficient improvements have been made. If they have not, we will decide what further action to take.”
Inspectors found that leaders had work to do to improve both care for people using the service, and the working environment, to enable staff to provide excellent care:
- Leaders did not always manage or understand the issues the service faced, even though they had the skills and abilities to do so. They were unable to assure CQC the right processes were in place to make sure they were in compliance with regulations to keep people safe
- Risks and issues were not always identified and escalated appropriately to reduce their impact. Leaders had plans to cope with unexpected events but did not have effective policies to limit risks on a more day to day basis
- Leaders reviewed improvements and innovation but failed to share practice updates with staff meaning they didn’t have the opportunity to continuously improve the service they were delivering which would have had a positive impact on people’s care
- Leaders did not effectively use systems to manage or monitor the effective of care and treatment so they were unable to benchmark outcomes for patients against national averages in order to know where improvements should be made
- Managers were not always visible in the service for patients and staff which led to a lack of oversight on safety and governance. It also meant not all staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities and they did not have regular opportunities to meet, discuss and learn from the performance of the service. Managers also failed to capture evidence of clinical staff’s performance in a timely manner
- Managers didn’t ensure staff had completed the appropriate training to keep people safe, including advanced life support training and how to recognise and report abuse
- Staff were not trained to routinely check or use lifesaving equipment, putting people at risk if they fell ill. Clinical waste was also not managed well which put the health of staff at risk.
However:
- The service had a vision for what it wanted to achieve and a strategy to turn it into action. The vision and strategy were focused on sustainability of services and aligned to local plans within the wider health economy
- People could access the service when they needed it and received care promptly. Waiting times from referral to treatment and arrangements to admit, treat and discharge patients were in line with national standards
- Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their individual needs. Staff gave patients practical support and advice to lead healthier lives and also provided emotional support to patients to minimise their distress
- The provider managed infection risk well. Staff used equipment and control measures to protect patients, themselves and others from infection. They kept equipment and the premises visibly clean
- Staff kept records of private patients’ care and treatment. These were clear, up to date, stored securely and easily available to clinical staff providing care
- People could give feedback and raise concerns about care received. The service treated concerns and complaints seriously, investigated them and shared lessons learned with all staff. The service included patients in the investigation of their complaint.
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published on our website.
For enquiries about this press release please email regional.engagement@cqc.org.uk.
Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here (Please note: the duty press officer is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters).
For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.