No Boost to Rating for Trust That Runs Ealing Hospital
London North West University Healthcare still 'requires improvement'
Picture: Ealing Hospital
The health regulator has decided not to change the rating of the local hospital trust after making an unannounced inspection recently.
The London North West University Healthcare Trust which runs Ealing Hospital, Central Middlesex Hospital and Northwick Park Hospital, had been rated as ‘requires improvement’ during a previous inspection.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited the hospitals in February and March and recognised “encouraging progress” but did not deem the changes sufficient to warrant a change of rating.
The snap inspection looked at medical care and surgery provided at Northwick Park Hospital and Ealing Hospital. It also assessed how well-led the trust is overall.
As well as being rated requires improvement overall following the inspection, the trust was rated requires improvement for being safe, effective, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. It was rated good for being caring.
Nicola Wise, head of hospital inspection at CQC, said, “Although the rating of the trust remained the same, we did find improvements since the previous inspection. When considering the additional challenges posed by Covid-19, the trust is making encouraging progress.
“We identified several areas it must improve on to ensure patients consistently receive safe care and treatment that meets their needs, including ensuring all services are adequately staffed and providing adequate mental health provision.
“However, good work included how the trust maintained its cancer services throughout the pandemic and how teams collaborated in surgery at Ealing Park Hospital.
“We have told the trust what it must do to comply with its legal obligations and keep people safe and will monitor its progress to ensure continued improvement.”
The inspection found that there were not always enough staff to keep patients safe and that mandatory training in resuscitation was below the national standard and out of date resuscitation equipment hadn’t been removed securely.
It was also discovered that a lack of seamless provision between the trust and other mental health providers was putting patients at risk and that patient records weren’t always stored securely.
Although the trust provided cancer treatment, the inspectors felt a lack of a local cancer strategy meant there was a risk that it didn’t align to others in the area to support people during and after their cancer treatment.
However, the trust improved its rating to good in eight areas across Ealing Hospital and Northwick Park Hospital including surgery at Ealing. It was also found that staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, and they respected their privacy and dignity as well as providing good care and treatment, making sure patients had enough to eat and drink and received pain relief when they needed it. People’s individual needs were considered, and emotional support was offered to patients and their loved ones.
The inspection also found examples of outstanding practice in medical care at Ealing Hospital. This included collaborative and multi-disciplinary ways of working to improve patient outcomes.
Pippa Nightingale, Chief Executive of LNWH, said: “It’s been an incredibly tough couple of years, but our teams have shown the qualities that can and will see us improve our ratings as we come out of the pandemic.
“We need to keep the momentum up, keep moving forward and work more closely with our communities. I joined LNWH several months ago and came here because I believed in its potential. This is an encouraging report that recognises how far we’ve come, as well as noting the work we still have to do.”
LNWH says it will now focus on the areas highlighted for improvement in the report, including improving its interaction with mental health services, developing a clear local cancer strategy, and conducting a significant recruitment drive.
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published on the CQC website.
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May 25, 2022