In January this year, CQC inspectors visited our emergency departments to carry out unannounced inspections.

The results of these reports have been published today (Wednesday 11 March), and have rated both departments as ‘requires improvement’ overall.

Tony Chambers, our interim Chief Executive, said:

“The results of these inspections are disappointing and we are taking them very seriously. We will reflect on the findings; take action; and increase our focus on what we do, day in and day out, to ensure that the experience of our patients and our staff is as positive as possible.

“Like many trusts, our emergency departments (EDs) have been under intense pressure. However, we recognise there are steps we can take to improve care for our patients.

“We have immediately put in place a number of measures to address some of the issues including more robust leadership of our emergency departments and additional staffing support; introducing a frailty unit at Queen’s Hospital to reduce the number of elderly patients in our ED, following the introduction of a successful unit at King George Hospital; and increased monitoring to improve patient safety. 

“We’re also working closely with our staff and local health partners on longer-term measures for additional support and expertise to drive and maintain improvements in key areas, including patient care.

“The Care Quality Commission is being kept up-to-date on our progress and inspectors will visit to reassess our EDs in the coming weeks.”

To tackle the issues raised in these reports, we’ve already begun to implement short-term and longer-term measures, including:    

• Working with health partners to bring additional specialist resources and support for our ED teams.
• Additional staffing within our waiting rooms to ensure there is increased monitoring of our patients.
• Introducing a frailty unit at Queen’s Hospital. A similar unit was successfully introduced at King George Hospital, which significantly reduced the number of older patients in ED and led to positive feedback on improved patient experience.
• A number of measures to improve patient flow across our hospitals.
• A focus on paediatric care at Queen’s Hospital, including a service review to be carried out by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, 24/7 cover by two registered children’s nurses (with a trigger to alert on any occasion when this is not in place) and additional competency checking and training for nurses working in our Children’s Emergency Department.
• We’ve had some success in tackling our recruitment challenges for ED nurses, thanks to initiatives including focused recruitment days, which has seen our number of vacancies reduce. We will continue to tackle this with a view to filling all vacancies by the end April.