CQC says Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust must do more to turn improvement plans into better care for patients

13 January 2011

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust that it must do more to make sure its plans for improvement deliver better patient care that meets essential standards of quality and safety.

The trigger for the CQC inspectors’ visit to Stafford Hospital on 15 November was a serious incident relating to the care of twins born prematurely at the hospital in October 2010. The review was not, however, an investigation into that specific case, nor was it intended to prejudge the independent investigation into the incident.

Inspectors concentrated on three areas relevant to this serious incident: how the trust managed medicines; staff training and supervision; and how well the trust gathered, recorded and evaluated information about the quality of care it provides.

CQC has highlighted and sought improvement in all of these areas in past investigations or reviews. While the trust has shown some improvements, the regulator wants to see more progress. The trust has given CQC action plans showing how it will meet essential standards in relation to managing medicines and supporting staff and CQC is currently evaluating these.

The trust has 28 days to provide a report to CQC saying what it will do to meet essential standards in assessing and monitoring the quality of its services.

Andrea Gordon, CQC Regional Director, said: ‘‘Systems and processes count for little if they are not consistently applied, monitored and reviewed and having a positive impact on patient care.

‘The trust has systems in place to support the right patient receiving the right medicine at the right time, but the competence of staff to administer and handle medicines is not routinely checked or monitored. Therefore, we have not been assured that medicines are always managed safely in the trust.

‘Nor are we assured that staff always receives the training they need. Again, systems are in place but they are not always being followed.

‘Our third concern was one we highlighted when we registered the trust in April 2010 – that the trust needed to make sure it had governance and audit systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of all its services. The trust took steps to put systems in place and we removed a compliance condition we applied at the time of registration.

During this review we found that the trust has continued to make progress but not all systems were fully embedded. As such we are not assured that the trust is always identifying, assessing and managing risks consistently.’

CQC inspectors will be visiting the trust again in the coming weeks to assess how well it has addressed the regulator’s concerns with a range of issues identified in earlier reviews in September and October 2010.

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For further information please contact Nicola Stewart on 0121 600 5344 or the CQC press office on 0207 448 9401 (07917 232 143 out of hours).

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