The Care Quality Commission has rated Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation trust as Good overall, no change from its previous rating.
The trust was rated Outstanding for being well-led and Good for being safe, effective, caring and responsive, following the inspection in November 2019.
CQC inspected two core services at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and two core services at West Middlesex Hospital. Inspectors went to maternity services at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex Hospital. CQC also inspected critical care services at both hospitals.
Inspectors found evidence of some outstanding practice. The Critical care service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital conducted a relatives’ feedback survey to understand the views those close to the patient. Staff CQC spoke with said this feedback was very useful to develop a more holistic service. The results for the period of January to June 2019 were largely positive with all relatives answering positively when asked how the unit treated the patient, 72% of relatives said the care the patient received was excellent.
The critical care service hosted an international symposium annually. The symposium invited prominent national and global industry partners, leaders, clinicians, researchers and speakers from the critical care sector.
The service was an early adopter of the Better Births continuity of care model. This increased the number of women who experienced continuity of care from booking through to post-natal care. The service achieved above the national target.
In Maternity Services at West Middlesex Hospital inspectors saw several examples of outstanding practice including the development of the gentle birth initiative for women undergoing caesarean section.
The service had developed an animated film as part of a project on perinatal positivity aimed at promoting and improving the perinatal mental health and wellbeing of women. As part of this project the film had been translated into Urdu and Arabic languages. There was a plan in place to translate the film into eight more languages that are mostly spoken by women in the local area.
The trust website had software that could translate vital information on the website to 103 languages from different ethnicities and continents. The software had also made the website accessible for people with disabilities, learning disabilities, dyslexia or those who cannot read or write. The website allowed people to increase the font, colour, use a magnifying glass, download an audio file or to use the read to text icon.
The trust demonstrated a clear vision for what it wanted to achieve and workable plans with involvement from staff, patients, and key groups representing the local community. While managers addressed poor performance where necessary, there was a no blame culture and mistakes were regarded as opportunities for learning and improvement.
However, there were some areas the trust needed to improve, including:
- Mandatory training of medical staffing.
- Maternity services were not always using appropriate risk assessment tools during triage. This was highlighted during the inspection and the trust put an audit in place to ensure this was done going forward.
- Inspectors found some issues with checks of resuscitation equipment in maternity at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital site.
Professor Ted Baker, England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust has a leadership with a vision for what it wanted to achieve and workable plans to turn it into action, developed with involvement from staff, patients, and key groups representing the local community.
“Having improved the quality of its core services the trust had changed from an inward focus to a more outward focus. The trust was now playing a leading part in the development of the wider strategy for north west London.”
You can read the report in full when it is published on CQC’s website at: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RQM
NHS Improvement has conducted a Use of Resources assessment of the trust. The aim of Use of Resources assessments is to understand how effectively providers are using their resources to provide high quality, efficient and sustainable care for patients. Chelsea and Westminster were rated Outstanding for the way it used its resources. The combined quality and resources rating was Good.
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