The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following an inspection of services provided by The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, at Rotherham General Hospital in May and June.
CQC carried out an inspection of the trust’s urgent and emergency care, medical care, services for children and young people and maternity services, to follow up on previous concerns raised, and risks identified around the quality of care being provided to patients.
Following this inspection, the overall rating for the trust remains rated as requires improvement. It remains rated requires improvement for being safe, effective and well led. It also remains rated as good for being caring and responsive.
Sarah Dronsfield, CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said:
“When we inspected services at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, we found that the leadership had significantly improved since our last full inspection in 2018. Staff also told us they were pleased about the changes in the leadership team and felt much more supported and listened to. Although the team had made some improvements since our last visit, it was not enough to make an impact on the overall trust rating which remains as requires improvement.
“Inspectors found performance issues in urgent and emergency care which resulted in long waiting times for patients. Some patients waited longer than seven hours following initial assessment before being seen by a doctor, with one waiting more than ten hours. We were told by senior staff that patients were not monitored or routinely observed which increased the risk of a patient deteriorating while in the waiting room.
“We were also concerned about the inadequate processes around safeguarding in this department, that may put people at risk of avoidable harm. Safeguarding referrals weren’t always made quickly, by staff who knew the patient, or the circumstances around the concerns. The inadequate processes also meant the trust could have been missing opportunities to intervene to keep people safe by referring them to the local authority safeguarding team. This has been identified at previous inspections, and we have told the trust they must address it as a matter of urgency.
“Leaders did not have good enough governance processes in place to have oversight of these issues, to make improvements. There was evidence that issues had been repeatedly identified but action was not always taken to address them.
“Patients didn’t always have a dignified experience when they were being moved from one place to another within the hospital. We saw one patient being transferred without any trousers on and no alternative covering which is totally unacceptable. Everyone should be able to expect to be treated with dignity and respect.
“Last November the trust was issued with a warning notice in medical care which included issues about not having enough suitably skilled and competent staff to meet people’s needs. During this inspection we looked at the areas identified in the warning notice, and found some areas had improved however, there were still staff vacancies and gaps in the rota, especially during the night which could put patients at risk.
“We’ve fed back our findings to the trust and they know what improvements need to be made especially in urgent and emergency care and medical care. We will continue to monitor the trust closely and return to check on their progress.”
CQC inspectors found:
- The trust needs to develop their own plans to improve the people of Rotherham’s experience of services
- The improvements in leadership and culture were clear since our previous inspection, however the trust recognised more work needed to be done to embed service improvements and CQC expects these changes to be reflected in positive patient outcomes
- Effective governance processes weren’t always in place to enable leaders to support service performance and recognise issues with patient safety, experiences, or the clinical effectiveness of services.
However, inspectors saw outstanding practice trust-wide and in the medical care unit. The trust had designed an integrated discharge team where health and social care colleagues came together in the clinical operations hub. There was real vision and ambition being driven by staff involved.
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published on our website.
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