Care at Northampton General Hospital downgraded following inspection
Medical care and urgent and emergency care have been downgraded from good to requires improvement by the Care Quality Commission.
Northampton General Hospital's overall care rating has been downgraded following an inspection earlier this year.
Overall it's rating has gone from 'good' to 'requires improvement.'
It follows a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in February which changed it's rating from good to requires improvement for it's medical care and urgent and emergency care.
As part of it's regular monitoring of health services, in a report out today the CQC says whilst how caring and responsive the service is, have again been rated good, where it had previously been rated as good, in how safe it is, how effective and how well led, it had now been downgraded to requires improvement.
The unannounced inspection on 18th and 19th February found breaches in care.
Some of the things highlighted in the report included:
- Staff didn’t always clearly communicate with people about their treatment or discharge plans.
- Staff didn’t ensure people had privacy when discussing personal information with them, and the trust had placed additional beds in ward bays.
- Staff didn’t consistently keep people’s records updated, and in some instances didn’t accurately record when they gave people medication. This left people at risk of missing or receiving too much medication, compromising their safety.
- Leaders didn’t make sure that the environments were suitable for staff to provide care.
- Leaders didn’t always work with staff when incidents happened to identify what went wrong and make change to prevent them from happening again.
- The service and healthcare partners didn’t work together closely enough to help get people out of hospital safely or in a timely manner.
Despite this the report also highlighted that staff understood their responsibilities for safeguarding and protecting people from harm and leaders supported staff to develop in their roles.
In urgent and emergency care inspectors found staff didn’t identify the risks that people using the service faced, which put them at risk of harm.
They were particularly concerned about the risk people faced from the deterioration of their condition and developing pressure ulcers.
People waited a long time in the department due to the lack of flow through the hospital and demand on services.
Craig Howarth, CQC deputy director of operations in the midlands, said:
“Since our previous inspection at Northampton General Hospital, we found improvements were still needed in medical care, and the safety and quality of care in urgent and emergency care had declined. This is consistent with our findings around the quality of leadership in both services which we found required improvement. Without this strong leadership, staff struggled to always have the direction needed to provide good care.
“People and their families told us they had positive experiences when they received care in medical care. Staff treated them with kindness and respect. However, staff didn’t always clearly communicate with people about their treatment or discharge plans, and they didn’t involve people in discussions about their immediate needs.
“We had several concerns about how people flowed through medical care services. At the time of the inspection, leaders hadn’t fully embedded effective processes to help get people home from hospital when they were ready to leave. This in turn affected capacity across the hospital, leaving other departments unable to admit people due to a lack of available beds.
“People had mixed experiences when they used urgent and emergency care services. Staff delivered inconsistent care meaning some people waited a long time to access care and treatment, and receive information, medication or pain relief.
“We had specific concerns around how staff in this service administered medication and completed necessary training, and how leaders responded to incidents and complaints. These are areas where the trust needs to make urgent improvements.
“We told the trust where it needed to make rapid improvements and will continue to monitor the service closely to ensure people stay safe while this happens.”
The University Hospitals of Northamptonshire’s Medical Director, Hemant Nemade, said:
“We are truly sorry that we have not provided the level of care that our communities need and deserve.
“We are committed to learning and improving to ensure every patient receives safe, high-quality care.
“Since the inspection was carried out in February 2025, we have undertaken significant work to address the CQC’s concerns.
“Many new processes are now in place to improve and monitor safety and care, enhance privacy and dignity and improve how we support patients throughout their emergency care journey.
“We remain committed to delivering safe, high-quality care and we will continue to listen to and work with our patients, staff, and system partners to offer the best care possible.”