Hospital fails to meet all five key standards
Posted: August 22, 2013
Posted in: Medical Negligence
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Norfolk has raised “real concern” after a recent inspection report, said The Care Quality Commission (CQC). CQC inspectors visited the hospital during three days in May, which revealed a failure to meet all five key standards of operation in health care. The hospital’s failure to meet three of these standards was having a major impact on patients. One of the failed standards highlighted a major staffing issue within the hospital, playing a major part in the running of the hospital as a whole.
The Care Quality Commission demanded improvements in nine key areas of the hospital following their three days of inspection. However, staffing, consent to care and treatment, and the hospital’s assessment of quality of service, were the areas most in need of improvement. The inspection uncovered worrying weaknesses in their staff management, with a severe lack of qualified, skilled and experienced staff being available to patients. Prior to the inspection days, the hospital had endured staff shortages across three of their inpatient wards.
Recruitment of 80 new nurses
The chair of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust, Kate Gordon, said: “We are obviously very concerned by the findings of the CQC inspection. Our aim is always to provide safe, high-quality care and we are very sorry that, in some cases, patients, carers and families have experienced poor care.”
The trust said that prior to the investigation, steps had already been made towards improved services. They had previously commissioned an independent review to assist the effectiveness of systems and processes; this resulted in the recruitment of 40 registered nurses, who joined in June and July, with a further 40 being recruited in the near future.
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