The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated the overall care at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust as Outstanding following its routine inspection in March this year.
The CQC assessed nine core services across the Trust against five domains: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
End of life care was rated overall as Outstanding, with surgery, maternity and gynaecology services, services for children and young people and outpatient and diagnostic services each rated overall as Good.
Feedback from patients across the Trust was positive. The inspection found that patients and their families are involved as partners in their care and empowered and supported to maximise their independence.
The CQC found many areas of good practice across the organisation. Out of the 53 indicators which make up the Trust’s overall rating, 36 are rated Good and three are rated Outstanding. Whether services are effective and well-led were also rated as Good overall.
However, the report also identifies areas for improvement and the CQC has rated the Trust overall as Requiring Improvement.
James Scott, Chief Executive at the RUH, said: “Whilst we are disappointed with our Trust’s overall rating, we are delighted the CQC has rated the overall care given to our patients as Outstanding.
“It’s also important that the CQC recognised a strong safety culture at the Trust. They found openness and transparency about safety is actively encouraged and supported by leaders at all levels in our organisation.”
Helen Blanchard, Director of Nursing and Midwifery at the RUH, adds: “It’s testament to all our staff that the inspection team found our patients are treated with kindness, compassion, courtesy, dignity and respect throughout our organisation. This is reflected in the CQC rating every service they assessed as either Good or Outstanding in relation to patient care.”
The Trust acknowledges there are areas in which it needs to improve and is already working to address these.
Helen continues: “We fully accept that there are some areas in which we need to improve. We continue to make sure that we have the right staffing levels across our hospitals, and we have been actively trying to recruit more nurses in particular for a number of months. Work to address issues in relation to documentation and record keeping in some departments was already underway at the time of the inspection and we will continue to build on this.”
James concludes: “We recognise, and it’s no secret, that our hospital is under pressure, particularly in Urgent and Emergency Care, and this is something we are working to address. Our staff work incredibly hard and I’m pleased the CQC recognised that despite the challenges we face, our patient feedback is overwhelmingly positive.
“We also know that we can’t look at our Emergency Department in isolation from the rest of the health and social care system, so we continue to work closely with our health and social care partners to look at ways to improve patient flow through the hospital so that patients can be discharged in a safe, appropriate and timely manner. It’s important that we not only make improvements where identified, but that we also share the areas of outstanding practice identified in this report.”
The CQC has also begun its inspections of local GP surgeries in the area. According to the Care Quality Commission website, St Mary’s and Hillcrest Surgeries are both under inspection, while St Chad’s, Chilcompton and Hope House have yet to be inspected. Westfield Surgery was found to be in need of some improvement, with the majority of services being rated good.B&NES CCG, the NHS organisation that monitors and coordinates the delivery of health services, says it welcomes the findings. Dr Ian Orpen, a local GP and Clinical Chair of NHS Bath and North East Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (BaNES CCG) said: “The CCG welcomes the CQC report on the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust. Although the trust was rated overall as ‘requires improvement’, local people will not be surprised to hear that the standard of caring is ‘outstanding’. This would simply not be possible without the hard working hospital staff who continue to go the extra mile for patients, despite the pressures they are under. “Our local health and care system is well aware of the challenges we face to reduce waiting times and improve patient flow when the demand on our services is increasing all the time. The CCG will continue to work closely with the RUH and our many other partners, each of us doing our bit to contribute to a high quality health and care service for our population.”