The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust to make improvements to ensure the safe care and treatment of patients.
CQC carried out a focused inspection of the urgent and emergency care departments at Pinderfields Hospital and Dewsbury and District Hospital as part of CQC’s ongoing review of urgent and emergency care services. Medical services, maternity and children’s services were also inspected at both sites.
Following the inspection, the overall rating for the trust, as well as for being safe and responsive, remains rated as requires improvement. Well-led has improved from requires improvement to good. Caring and effective remain rated as good.
Pinderfields Hospital and Dewsbury and District Hospital both remain requires improvement. In both sites medical care dropped from good to requires improvement, urgent and emergency service remain as requires improvement. Services for children and young people remain good.
Maternity at Dewsbury and District Hospital remains good, while at Pinderfields Hospital the department improved from requires improvement to good.
CQC also carried out a short unannounced focused inspection of community health inpatient services at the trust. This was to find out how they were supporting the wider urgent and emergency care pathway. The service was not rated following this inspection and remains rated as good overall.
Sarah Dronsfield, CQC head of hospital inspection, said:
“When we inspected The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, staff were working hard under sustained pressure to deliver patient care. We found there had been a number of positive changes at board level, and the leadership team were trying to implement a number of improvements. However, at the time of our inspection the improvements that had been put in place, weren’t consistently embedded or having a significant positive impact on people’s experiences and more needs to be done, especially around managing patient flow through the hospitals.
“The trust must ensure that they make the necessary improvements and work closely with system partners to improve patient flow into and out of the hospitals. We will keep a close eye on progress and will return to ensure that the required improvements are made.”
At Dewsbury and District Hospital:
- In medical care, the service did not always have enough nursing and support staff to keep patients safe from avoidable harm or to provide the right care and treatment. Leaders knew this and regularly reviewed the service staffing levels and skill mix while trying to increase staffing levels for each shift.
- In maternity, staff took account of women’s individual needs and preferences. They made reasonable adjustments to help women access any necessary services and coordinated their care with other providers.
At Pinderfields Hospital:
- In the emergency department staff did not always clean equipment after patient contact. Inspectors saw a number of examples where staff did not clean equipment in-between patients. We saw examples of equipment used to transfer patients by ambulance staff, and not being cleaned after use. There were also examples of monitoring equipment being used and not cleaned between patients.
- Maternity staff provided emotional support to women, families and carers to minimise their distress. They understood women's personal, cultural and religious needs.
See our reports on The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust