CQC rate Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust as Good

England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust as Good overall following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

The trust has been rated as Good for providing services that are effective, responsive and well led and Requires Improvement for safety and Outstanding for providing services that are caring. A team of inspectors visited Harrogate District Hospital, Ripon Community Hospital, and the minor injuries units at Selby and Ripon, as well as community dental services, community healthcare services for adults, and children’s community services.

Full reports of the inspection are published.

Ellen Armistead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals in the north, said:

“As an integrated trust, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has worked very hard to bring together the acute and community services to operate as one organisation. On the whole this had been successful.

“We found community health services for adults were outstanding overall, with feedback we received from patients which was consistently positive. Services within critical care were outstanding: we found a proactive approach to understanding the individual needs of patients and designing the delivery of care around these. In the same way outpatient and diagnostic imaging services are tailored to meet the needs of individual people and are consistently exceeding performance targets.

“However, there are still some areas where further work is needed to integrate the services, particularly the community in-patient services and minor injuries unit. Further work is needed at Harrogate hospital to develop the children’s and young people’s services.”

The report identifies several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The diabetes specialist nurses demonstrated how they used information from the Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration system to monitor patients’ blood sugar readings and proactively visit them if necessary.This enabled the team to target patients before referrals were received.
• The redesign of the acute admissions and assessment pathway was initiated and driven by staff. Although it only started in October 2015, the benefits of the project were already being seen. Despite increased demand for medical specialities, the percentage bed occupancy had decreased. There had been no need to open the 12-bedded winter pressures escalation ward because the project was so successful.
• Community Dental Services were actively seeking out groups of people who were at risk from poor dental hygiene or who were normally excluded from routine dental treatment including prisoners, the homeless and people with a history of substance misuse.

The report also identifies some areas where the trust must take action:

• The trust must take steps to ensure that the environment on the Woodlands ward is appropriate to allow the needs of children and young people with mental health needs to be fully taken into account.
• The trust must improve the facilities in and access to the mortuary.
• The trust must ensure that accurate nursing records are kept in line with professional standards particularly in urgent and emergency services and that medical records are stored securely.

CQC will be presenting 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.

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