Salisbury Hospital maternity and spinal services told to improve
CQC conduct inspection after concerns raised about 'safety, quality and leadership' of the services
Last updated 12th Jul 2021
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust that improvements need to be made in its maternity and spinal services. It follows a recent inspection at Salisbury District Hospital.
CQC officials carried out an unannounced, focused inspection of the maternity and spinal services on 31 March, after receiving information of concern regarding the safety, quality and leadership of the services.
'INADEQUATE' RATING
Following the inspection, the overall rating of the maternity service moves from good to requires improvement.
The rating for how well-led the service is also moves down, from good to inadequate.
The rating for safe remains requires improvement.
CQC inspected whether services were caring and effective but did not rate these domains.
The Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre specialises in the management of patients affected by spinal cord injury or disease. Following the inspection, the overall rating of the service did not change, and remains requires improvement. The rating for well-led moves from good to requires improvement. The safe domain remains requires improvement.
MOST OF THE TIME IS 'NOT GOOD ENOUGH'
Amanda Williams, CQC's head of hospital inspection, said:
"Following our recent inspection of Salisbury District Hospital's maternity services, we found that women and babies using the service received effective care and treatment which met their needs most of the time. But most of the time is not good enough."
"We have told the trust it must ensure there are effective systems in place to improve the quality and safety of the maternity service, and that risks are regularly assessed, monitored and mitigated to keep people safe."
"We were concerned about the leadership of the service, and the lack of systems in place to ensure that people were receiving good care. We also wanted to follow up on previous concerns we had about the overall culture of the maternity service which meant that staff were worried about being blamed for incidents that occurred. Because of this, there had been a reluctance to speak out, when staff should be encouraged to report incidents and share learnings, so that improvements can be made. This in turn had an impact on the safety of the service for patients. Although the trust had taken steps to address this, there was still more work to be done."
"We have told the trust that it needs to make significant improvements in these areas. If sufficient improvements are not made rapidly, we will consider what further action to take."
"In the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre, we told the trust that it needed to review governance arrangements, including regular audits, to make sure improvements were consistently being made at the service. We also told the trust that risk assessments, with supporting documentation, must be completed for each patient in order to keep them safe."
Responding to the recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) report into maternity services and spinal treatment centre at Salisbury District Hospital Stacey Hunter CEO said
"Salisbury Foundation Trust welcomes the CQC review of our maternity services and we recognise that improvements in leadership and some of the day-to-day systems and processes are needed.
Following the inspection, I am able to reassure women that our maternity services remain safe. Providing high quality compassionate care is the team’s top priority.
We continue to be encouraged by the regular positive feedback we get from families that have used the service.
To address some of the areas of concern we have already taken action to strengthen the departments leadership. This includes ÂŁ500K investment in additional midwifery roles to support the local risk management, training and governance processes. We have also taken the opportunity to establish a new Director of Midwifery.
We are sorry that some of our processes failed to live up to the high standards rightly expected of us and pledge to do everything we can to ensure the maternity department is well run, has a happy and supportive culture and continues to deliver high quality and compassionate care.
The past year or so has been especially hard for the team in the Spinal Unit as they have worked tirelessly to keep patients safe under very difficult circumstances. The report makes clear that the unit provides a safe and caring service but there are elements of the management processes and skills mix of staff that need improving. An action plan has been developed with the team and I am confident that the service will emerge even better following this CQC review."