The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following inspections of urgent and emergency services and services for children and young people at Russells Hall Hospital, part of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, in May and June.
The inspections were carried out as part of CQC’s continual checks on the safety and quality of healthcare services.
Following the inspection, the following ratings were given at each service:
- Urgent and emergency services: The overall rating for the service remains requires improvement. Safe and responsive is rated requires improvement again, caring is rated as as good again and the ratings for well-led and effective have gone up from requires improvement to good
- Services for children and young people: The overall rating for the service has gone up from requires improvement to good. Safe is rated requires improvement again, effective and caring are rated good again and well-led and responsive have gone up from requires improvement to good.
The overall rating for the trust remains as requires improvement.
Charlotte Rudge, CQC deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said:
“When we inspected The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, it was positive to see improvements had been made across both services, and leaders must now ensure further improvements are made and the ones already made are sustained.
“We saw visible and approachable leaders in the children and young people’s services, and staff who were proud of their work and were kind and caring to the children and young people in their care.
“We sat in on a children’s outpatient appointment with a consultant and observed excellent interactions with the child and their family. The consultant listened carefully to any concerns and spoke to the child in a child-friendly way, avoiding any jargon and putting them at ease.
“In urgent and emergency care, we also saw hard-working, kind, and considerate staff who were committed to providing the best care to people using the service.
“Managers monitored waiting times and made sure people could access emergency services when needed and receive treatment within agreed timeframes.
“However, ambulance offload times regularly didn’t meet the trust target of 95% of people being taken to A&E within 15 minutes. This had been consistently low at the start of the year which could have a detrimental impact on people’s care and increase the risk of deterioration in those in need of urgent care. Leaders must ensure this is improved as a priority to ensure nobody comes to harm.
“We will continue to monitor the trust, including through future inspections, to ensure further improvements are made so people can receive safe and appropriate care.”
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
At urgent and emergency services:
- Staff understood how to protect people from abuse, and managed safety well
- The department was organised, and managers knew which people were being seen and for which condition
- Staff assessed risks to people, acted on them and kept good care records
- Staff worked well together for the benefit of people, advised them on how to lead healthier lives and supported them to make decisions about their care
- Medical staff did not always have the training in safeguarding to the appropriate level
- The resuscitation area didn’t meet the needs of the people attending for urgent treatment.
At services for children and young people:
- Staff felt that leaders were visible and approachable
- The service planned care to meet the needs of local people and took account of children and young people’s individual needs
- Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills
- Staff treated children and young people with compassion and kindness and respected their privacy and dignity
- Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect children and young people from abuse, and managed safety well
- The service did not have enough staff with the recommended qualifications. However, there was an appropriate plan in place to achieve this.