The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated maternity services at Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust as requires improvement following an inspection in December.
The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s national maternity inspection programme.
The programme aims to provide an up-to-date view of the quality of hospital maternity care across the country, and a better understanding of what is working well to support learning and improvement at a local and national level.
Inspectors looked at the areas of safe and well-led in the maternity services at Tameside General Hospital. Following the inspection, the overall rating for maternity at Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust as well as the areas for safe and well-led, have dropped from good to requires improvement.
CQC didn’t look at how effective, caring, and responsive the service was at this inspection, therefore the ratings for these areas remain as good.
The overall rating for the trust, as well as Tameside General Hospital, remains as good.
Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:
“When we inspected maternity services at Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, we found staff who were skilled and were focused on the needs of women, people using the service and their babies. However, there was a deterioration in the standard of care being provided since we last inspected and leaders must now focus on making the necessary improvements.
“We were concerned that despite leaders monitoring waiting times, they didn’t always ensure people were seen in a timely manner and there were delays in people receiving treatment once they had been initially assessed. Staff told us people may face long waits for a medical review, especially those from antenatal clinic waiting for a scan review in the assessment unit.
"We also found that the dedicated triage telephone line wasn’t always answered by a trained member of staff which could place people at risk if their concern was dealt with by someone who didn’t have the right knowledge or skill.
"Despite these concerns, we found staff and leaders were committed to improving the service. The leadership team were responsive when staff identified where improvements could be made and took action to make any changes.
“Leaders were aware of how health inequalities affected treatment and outcomes for people from ethnic minority and disadvantaged groups in their local population. For example, the service provided additional support to people who smoked and they managed to significantly reduce the percentage of people who were smokers at the time of delivery.
“We will continue to monitor the trust, including through future inspections, to ensure the necessary improvements are made so people can receive safe and appropriate care.”
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
- Some areas of the maternity unit weren’t clean and not all staff had completed infection prevention and control training
- Staff didn’t always keep good care records, nor were they stored securely
- Processes to check emergency equipment weren’t always effective and there were out of date and missing items on emergency trolleys
- Not all relevant staff had completed level three adult safeguarding training
- Staff didn’t always follow systems and processes to prescribe, store and administer medicines safely.
However:
- The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them
- Staff were proud to work for the service and mostly felt respected, supported, and valued
- Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent.