Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust has been rated Requires Improvement overall by the Care Quality Commission following an inspection in May.
The trust has been rated Requires Improvement for safety, effectiveness and responsiveness, Good for caring and Inadequate for well-led.
Professor Ted Baker, England’s Chief inspector of Hospitals, said:
“Since the last inspection of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, there has been some changes at executive level and, I am pleased to report, some notable improvement. However there is scope for further improvement.
“There remain significant concerns around the quality of care in some areas of the trust. However our main concern was around the pace of improvement in areas highlighted in previous CQC inspections. For this reason the trust will remain in special measures to ensure the appropriate level of support is given to the trust to ensure sustainable improvement for the population it serves.”
You can find the latest ratings tables for the trust on pages 21 - 26 of the report: Read the report
Overall the trust’s rating has improved from Inadequate to Requires Improvement. The Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby, remains Requires Improvement. Maternity services and services for young people and children were rated as Good. Outpatient services were Inadequate.
Goole and District Hospital has been rated Requires Improvement. Outpatient services were Inadequate, although diagnostic imaging; rated for the first time was rated Good. Services for children and young people improved to Good.
Scunthorpe General Hospital is rated Requires Improvement, with outpatient services rated as Inadequate
Across the trust the rating for safety improved from Inadequate to Requires Improvement. However, inspectors found that the trust did not always have appropriate numbers of staff to ensure patients received safe care and treatment and there were not enough doctors in line with national and professional recommendations in a number of services.
For effectiveness the rating remains Requires Improvement. The trust did not always provide seven day services in line with national guidance - not all patients received a senior medical review every day, particularly at weekends. Additionally, appraisal rates for staff were worse than the trust target in the majority of services.
Caring was again rated as Good. Patients being were being given clear instructions in a caring manner and staff provided emotional support to patients to minimise their distress.
Responsiveness has been rated Requires Improvement. At the 2016 inspection CQC had concerns about the number of patients overdue their appointment. During this inspection CQC found there were 31,295 patients overdue their follow up appointment as at March 2018. This was worse than the previous inspection. During this inspection there were still patients without an appointment due date.
For the trust, the combined rating for acute and community medicine went up to Requires Improvement. Additionally community health services across the trust had dropped to Requires Improvement. At The Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, maternity services were rated the same at Good, but services for young people and children improved to Good. Overall, outpatient services were Inadequate.
CQC also looked specifically at management and leadership to answer the key question: Is the trust well led? CQC rated it as Inadequate. The trust did not have a leadership or talent management strategy and had not taken timely action to develop leaders. In addition, inspectors did not see evidence that all executive and non-executive directors fully understood the scale of the trust’s challenges to finance, quality and sustainability