Milton Keynes Hospital makes good progress in improving midwifery services, but fails to meet essential standards in other areas

6 April 2011

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said today that Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has now made the required improvements to its maternity services.

CQC has now decided to lift the final conditions which had been placed on the trust when it was registered under the new system of regulation which was introduced last year.

Last year the Care Quality Commission lifted nine conditions which had been placed on the trust's licence, following improvements and, after further assessment, the three remaining conditions have also been lifted:

• The trust must have appropriate systems to detect and monitor ‘at risk’ mothers and babies to ensure suitable care is provided at all times.
• The trust must have appropriate maternity escalation and risk management plans in place and in use by staff.
• The trust must have enough senior midwives and obstetrician cover to cope with demand.

However, although maternity services have improved, a separate report – also published today by the CQC – raised concerns around the Trust’s performance in other areas.

Inspectors carried out a visit in January to observe how people were being cared for, talk to patients and staff, check the provider’s records, and to look at people’s records.

The inspection team visited Ward 16,for female cardiac and respiratory medicine, Ward 20, for female gastrointestinal medicine and surgery, Ward 21,for orthopaedic and surgery, Ward 5 – a children’s ward, the postnatal ward and the imaging department.

CQC had concerns that, on one ward in particular, the hospital was not meeting essential standards in three areas:

• Respecting and involving service users: Inspectors said that patients’ privacy and dignity could not always be respected because curtains around some of the beds were not long enough. On ward 20, patients were not given enough information to help them understand the care and treatment options open to them. Assessment of some patients’ mental capacity to make decisions had not been completed.
• Cleanliness and infection control: Patients and visitors were placed at risk because just under half of the staff had not attended infection prevention and control training. On ward 20, staff did not follow infection prevention and control procedures, including the removal of wrist watches and rolling up sleeves.
• Records: Although the trust had systems in place, records were not consistently stored securely or kept confidentially. The standard of record keeping varied throughout the hospital and patients could not be consistently assured that records were being kept up to date.

The trust has produced an action plan showing how it intends to achieve compliance. By law, providers of care services have a legal responsibility to make sure they are meeting the essential standards of quality and safety.

Inspectors will review progress with the trust’s plans to address the breaches, including making unannounced visits to the hospital, in coming months.

Roxy Boyce, regional director of CQC in the South East said that the trust had already provided plans setting out improvements, and inspectors would follow up to ensure that the improvements are made.

She said, “It is clear that Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has made considerable progress to address the issues that we had raised in the past with the maternity services.

“However, we were disappointed that the trust was not meeting all essential standards of quality and safety. These are the standards of care anyone should be able to expect in any hospital. We will return to the trust in the near future to ensure that improvements have been made.”

Ends

For further information please contact the CQC press office on 0207 448 9239 or out of hours on 07917 232 143.

Notes to editors