Sherwood Forest Hospitals rated as Good in latest inspection

Posted Wednesday, August 15, 2018 7:07 AM

Sherwood Forest Hospitals rated as Good in latest inspection

It’s official – England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, on behalf of the Care Quality Commission, has rated the services provided by Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as Good and specifically recognised that the Trust was Outstanding in the Caring domain. 

Inspectors from the CQC visited King’s Mill Hospital, Newark Hospital, Mansfield Community Hospital and Ashfield Health Village in April 2018 and asked if the services were:

  • Safe
  • Effective
  • Caring
  • Responsive
  • Well led

Each domain was then rated Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate with an overall rating also given.

The Trust received the rating of Good overall, up from Requires Improvement in 2016 and the findings indicate improvements across every domain. Caring moved from Good to Outstanding. Well led moved from Requires Improvement to Good, as did responsive and effective and whilst safe did not improve from the 2016 rating of Requires Improvement, this was because not all services were visited and historical ratings from 2014 and 2015 were included in the final assessment. All ten services visited in 2018 were rated Good for safe. The CQC made 47 ratings at Sherwood in 2018; 42 were Good, four were Outstanding and only one was Requires Improvement.

Sherwood also had four services with areas of Outstanding; Mansfield Community Hospital was rated Outstanding for the caring domain, as was the caring domain for Maternity care at King’s Mill Hospital and the well led domain for Urgent and Emergency Care and Outpatients at King’s Mill Hospital.

This is the first time SFH has been inspected under the new CQC process, which differs from the previous methodology. Previously all services would be visited on a three year cycle, whereas in the new process, the CQC visit a reduced number of services and the visits take place annually.

At Newark Hospital, every service the inspectors saw in 2018 was rated Good and Mansfield Community Hospital gained an overall rating of Good.

Richard Mitchell, Chief Executive said: “I am delighted with our overall rating of Good and that Inspectors specifically recognised that the Trust was Outstanding in the Caring domain. I am extremely grateful to the wonderful staff and volunteers at Sherwood who have all contributed to this rating. This rating indicates further progress has been made at Sherwood. I was particularly pleased the CQC said “Staff respected patients’ privacy and dignity at all times and always showed compassion and kindness… Throughout the inspection we found a demonstrable culture of high quality, sustainable care which was delivered across specialties, divisions, Trust locations and staff groups.” 

“Whilst we may be disappointed that our safe rating is still Requires Improvement, this is because of the services not visited in 2018 and who have ratings that now date back up to four years. I am confident that if we continue to improve and continue to work closely with the CQC and NHS Improvement, this rating will change in our 2019 inspection. All ten services rated in 2018 received Good for safety which is a very powerful statement.

“This marks the beginning of the next stage of our journey at Sherwood. Our last two staff surveys indicate more staff than even before enjoy working at Sherwood with eight out of ten staff recommending us as a place to work and nine out of ten recommending us as a place to receive care. This year’s inpatient survey shows 84% of our inpatients rated their overall experience as good.

“We want to consistently achieve two things at Sherwood. We want patients to receive the level of care we would want our friends and family to receive and we want colleagues to be treated in the way we want to be treated. I believe we are making progress and the CQC report is another indicator of this, but there is lots more we need to do to ensure all staff and patients feel included.

“It is evident we need to improve further and whilst we are pleased with this report this information confirms our journey has not finished. We will use the report in conjunction with the other information we regularly look at and we will work with the CQC and NHS Improvement to become an ever better provider of patient care. I believe we have already made progress since the visit in April 2018 and I look forward to demonstrating this to the CQC in our inspection next year.”

Key messages from the CQC report were:

King’s Mill Hospital

Sharing learning from incidents had improved with a culture that encouraged shared learning. 

Staff demonstrated a kind and caring approach towards patients and their families. It was obvious staff had a positive relationship with patients and we saw staff spending time talking to patients and their families. 

There was effective clinical governance procedures and quality measurement processes. 

Mansfield Community Hospital

There were multiple examples of how staff exceeded patient expectations and provided individualised, compassionate care that significantly improved individual experiences. 

There had been demonstrable, substantial improvements in the areas we previously found for improvement that were under each ward team’s control. This included stabilised leadership, improvements in training and induction and a reduction in the use of agency staff. 

Rehabilitation was at the heart of care and treatment in the hospital and staff, both clinical and non-clinical, had taken on additional training to be able to provide extended roles. 

Newark Hospital

We saw staff providing compassionate care throughout our visit. Patients spoke highly of the care they received. 

When concerns were raised or things went wrong, the approach to reviewing and investigating causes had improved. 

Sharing learning from incidents had improved with a culture that encouraged shared learning. 

There were effective clinical governance procedures and quality measurement processes. 

The Trust had effective systems for identifying risks, planning to eliminate or reduced them, and coping with both the expected and unexpected. 

Wendy Saviour, Managing Director of Nottinghamshire health and social care said: “Significant improvements have been made by the Trust and it’s clear that the commitment and compassion of staff are at the heart of the CQC’s findings. This is another example of how real progress is being made across Nottinghamshire with transforming health and care services for the benefit of our communities. This latest success follows a series of inspections at Nottingham University Hospitals, Nottinghamshire Healthcare, Nottingham CityCare Partnership and Nottingham Treatment Centre over the last two years, all of which have achieved ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ CQC ratings.”

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