Croydon University Hospital failing CQC standards

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has released a Press Release stating that Croydon University Hospital is not meeting six essential standards.

A recent review of services has led to The Care Quality Commission telling the Croydon University Hospital that it must take action to address shortages of midwives in its maternity unit. This mirrors the concerns raised about staffing levels in maternity at Barking Havering and Redbridge University NHS Trust several weeks ago.

The CQC found that the maternity unit at Croydon University Hospitak was not meeting six essential standards. Their Press Release highlighted the following areas of concern:

• Care and welfare: While the majority of births at the maternity unit are safe, the CQC were concerned at recent occurrences of maternal deaths and the trust’s ability to ensure optimum care when an emergency high risk situation occurs. They found evidence that the maternity unit may not always be able to provide 1:1 care on the labour ward, that the trust had not devised a process to ensure timely and effective provision of epidurals in all cases, and that an anaesthetist may not be available at all times. These scenarios are likely to impact on patient welfare and care.
• Safe and accessible surroundings: The CQC were concerned about the lack of separate showers for women using the birthing pools and the lack of provision of beds in amenity rooms for partners.
• Safety and suitability of equipment: Equipment in the maternity unit was not always available when needed, especially during busy periods, and was not always repaired in a timely manner.
• Staffing: The trust was in the process of recruiting additional midwives at the time of our review; however, the CQC were concerned that there were insufficient numbers of midwives giving direct clinical care to ensure people who use the services were safe and their health and welfare needs were met.
• Supporting staff: People who use the service may not receive treatment from competent staff as there is evidence that mandatory staff training was not up-to-date.
• Quality checking systems: The provider had implemented clinical governance and procedural changes following recent incidents and developed an action plan to improve the service. However the CQC were concerned that the trust has not yet delivered effective learning from past incidents where there are high risk mothers or birth complications gained from effective root cause analysis, assimilation of learning from incidents and transmission of learning to all staff, including midwives, midwifery assistants, anaesthetists and consultants.

Colin Hough, Regional Director of CQC in London said, “The Maternity Unit at Croydon University Hospital is not meeting all of the essential standards people should be able to expect. We have told the trust where it needs to do more to comply.

“We will continue to monitor the trust’s progress, to make more unannounced visits if necessary, and to take any further action that we deem necessary to make sure the trust gets it right."

“We have asked the trust to reply within 28 days of receiving CQC’s report, setting out the action they will take to improve. We will follow up to make sure that the improvements have been made.”

Did you know it can take between 300 and 400 hours to prepare for a CQC Registration? Words Worth Reading Ltd offer cost effective, efficient and professional services to enable you to prepare for your CQC assessment in a pain-free way.