Trust ready to leave Quality Special Measures after improvements recognised by CQC
The Trust has achieved what is necessary to leave the Quality Special Measures it has been in since 2017 after a CQC inspection in June/July 2022 recognised many improvements in the Trust’s hospitals.
Published today, the report recognises our efforts to improve leadership, culture, safety, complaints and to tackle our waiting lists. Inspectors said they saw many good examples of patients receiving compassionate care, with staff ensuring patients privacy and dignity was maintained and it was evident that staff worked hard to achieve the best possible outcomes for people throughout the services they inspected.
The CQC found ‘outstanding practice’ in our diagnostic imaging services, recognised improvements in many services, including A&E, maternity and surgery, and raised the rating to ‘Good’ for all our outpatient services, Scunthorpe’s diagnostic services and the whole of Goole hospital.
They report staff feel more valued, respected and supported compared to the previous inspection and noted most people were happy with the care provided.
The Trust is no longer rated ‘Inadequate’ for safety in any of its services and has maintained its ‘Requires Improvement’ rating. Scunthorpe General Hospital and the Diana Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby are both rated ‘Requires improvement’ and Goole and District Hospital is rated ‘Good’ overall. Our community services were not inspected on this occasion.
The CQC grade our services across our three hospitals in 112 ‘service domains’; we saw improvements across 35 of these ‘service domains’ and saw a reduced grading in only 2.
Responding to the report, Trust Chief Executive Peter Reading said: “I am proud to see improvements recognised in this report and want to thank our wonderful staff who go ‘above and beyond’ to provide the high standards of care that our local communities deserve. Over the five years I’ve been working here I have seen thousands of times just how hard they work and how determined they are to offer great standards of care; it’s really heartening to see a recognition of their efforts reflected in this report.
“Being able to retain our ‘Requires Improvement’ rating is no mean feat given the context staff are working in, from the challenges of the pandemic to the huge demand on our services and the sheer amount of changes we are making to improve services. Although we remain ‘Requires Improvement’ we have moved up the rankings within that band and are much closer to ‘Good’ than we were.
“The key headline from the report is that we have improved in our Safety ratings across the board and our staff can be proud that we are rated ‘Good’ for caring in every service in all three hospitals. I hope this inspires confidence amongst our local community and reassurance that if they do need to use our services, they can be confident they’ll have a good experience.
“We know we have more to do; too many people are waiting too long for treatment, and we need to do more to recruit and retain staff.”
The CQC inspection covers five areas; Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well Led. At a Trust level Caring is ‘Good’ across the board and Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well Led are rated ‘Requires Improvement’.
Notes to editors
The inspection took place in June and July 2022 and was part of the CQC’s regular inspection regime. You can read the report in full on the CQC website
