20 NHS trusts up for inspection under new approach

The 20 NHS trusts listed face thorough scrutiny between April and June this year as part of the CQC’s new approach to hospital inspections.

These trusts will receive an official overall rating of outstanding, good, requires improvement or poor.

Each main service, such as maternity and accident and emergency, will also be rated in the same way, providing performance information at service and trust-level.

The trusts listed below have been selected for a range of reasons, with specialist trusts included for the first time. Some trusts inspected under the Bruce Keogh Review into high mortality rates are included for a follow-up inspection. Others are trusts judged to have a higher level of risk of providing poor care or are trusts hoping to secure foundation trust status. 

They are:

·       Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust

·       Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust

·       Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

·       Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust

·       East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust

·       George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust

·       Isle Of Wight NHS Trust

·       Medway NHS Foundation Trust

·       North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust

·       North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust

·       North West London Hospitals NHS Trust

·       Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

·       Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust

·       Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust

·       Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

·       Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust

·       Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

·       The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

·       United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

·       Wye Valley NHS Trust

Source: www.cqc.org.uk

A North Lincolnshire nursing home is fined £3,750 for failure to comply with CQC regulations

Gilby House Nursing Home failed to meet national CQC requirements and has been issued with fines of £3,750.

CQC has issued two fixed penalty notices, one to the provider, Prime Life Limited, and one to the former manager of Gilby House Nursing Home following their failure to notify the CQC within the required timescales about incidents affecting residents at the home.

CQC carried out an unannounced inspection at Gilby House Nursing Home on the 24 October 2013 as part of their scheduled programme of inspections for 2013/14.

After a review of care records, inspectors found that there had been a failure to inform CQC about the death of a person living at the home, and of a serious injury to another resident following a fall..

Due to the Home’s failure to meet legally required national standards, CQC has issued fixed penalty notices of £3,750.

For more details of the findings from the inspection in October 2013, read the full report here.

Source www.CQC.org.uk

Image: Images_of_Money, Flickr

Mental Health and Community Health Providers are to be inspected from April

The CQC has announced the second group of mental health and community health providers that will be inspected as part of the new approach to inspecting specialist mental health services.

The providers that are due to be inspected vary in size, specialisms and regions across England as the CQC continue to develop the improved inspection model for mental health and community healthcare.

The providers include:

Community health providers

•   Cambridgeshire Community Health Services NHS Trust

•   Kent Community Health NHS Trust

•   Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust

•   Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust

Mental health providers

•   Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

•   Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

•   Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust

•   Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

•   Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Combined

•   Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

•   Bradford District Care Trust

•   Humber NHS Foundation Trust

Inspections will begin from April, and by December 2015, every NHS Trust will have been inspected.

Source: www.CQC.org.uk

Image: Marchin Wichary, Flickr

Common Errors When Making Changes to the CQC Registration Process

The CQC has found that there are some common errors when people are making changes to their registration. 

These common mistakes include:

I’m a registered manager and I want to add an regulated activity to my registration. Can I do that before my provider has added that activity to their registration?

No. If you are a registered manager and need to apply to add a regulated activity that is new to the provider, the provider must make application and be approved before you submit your application.

I want to remove a partner from my registration who is our registered manager. How do I do that?

If you want to remove a partner who is also the registered manager, you will need to complete two separate forms - one form to remove the partner and one form to cancel their registration as the registered manager.

You can use the Form Finder on the CQC website to help you with the changes you need to make. 

If you would like help with the CQC registration process, at Words Worth Reading Ltd we offer full consultancy support to help make the process as easy as possible. 

Making Changes to Your CQC Registration Before 1 April 2013

Once you have received your Notice of Decision and certificate you will be able to make changes to your CQC registration. You can continue to make these changes using forms on the CQC website. Make sure you only use these forms, they are marked 'primary medical services'.

From April onwards you will be able to make changes to your registration through easy-to-use online forms. You will be able to submit them straight to the CQC through your account.

It is important that you let the CQC know about any changes as you need to make sure your registration is up-to-date when it comes into effect on 1 April 2013.

If your locations, legal status, regulated activities, partners or other details change before 1 April, you’ll be able to apply to make those changes using downloadable forms that you can email to the CQC. You can find the application you need to use by using the Form finder for primary medical services.

Words Worth Reading Ltd have assisted a wide range of providers to prepare for and apply for CQC registration, we offer a variety of interventions to support the registration process. Visit our website for more details. 

Image: baddog, Flickr

The CQC want to know what you think...

The CQC have just launched an on-line survey for users of their website to provide them with constructive feedback.

The Care Quality Commission is the body responsible for regulating Health and Social Care Providers in England. Their administrative systems have recently experienced an overhaul in an attempt to improve efficiency, and they are now turning their attention to their website. The CQC intend to use the survey responses to inform improvements to their website's functionality and usability.

To take part in the survey click here

For CQC Consultancy Support speak to one of our CQC experts

CQC report on North Devon Healthcare NHS Trust

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust that it must improve its systems for managing woundcare and for dealing with patients who are at risk of developing pressure sores.

Inspectors who visited North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple found that care plans and other patient records were not always completed. While they did not find individual cases of poor care, they did find a failure to fully assess and plan all aspects of patient care which could mean that some people might not get the care they needed.

The report of that inspection is published today.

The inspection process looked at areas of possible concerns relating to patient care which are currently being investigated through safeguarding procedures involving NHS Devon, Devon County Council, Devon and Cornwall police and the CQC.

The inspection focused on the hospital's current compliance in four related areas.

• How pressure area care is managed.
• How well the hospital works with patients with complex needs or with communications difficulties
• Consent and assessing mental capacity for patients.
• Meeting nutritional and hydration needs.

Inspectors spent three days at the hospital in July, meeting patients and staff, checking records and visiting medical and surgical wards. They found that the trust was compliant with three of the four standards which were reviewed.

Ian Biggs, Regional Director of CQC in the South West said that the trust must now provide its plans to show how it will achieve full compliance.

He said: "In a busy hospital, good patient records are essential. Doctors and nurses depend on them to ensure that their patients are getting the right care throughout the day and night, when shifts change and different staff come on duty or take over responsibility for a particular person’s care.

"Patients we met on the wards had no complaints about their care, although we have identified some key areas of concern, mainly around pressure damage and wound care, where lack of assessment and care planning could place people at risk.

"When we raised the issue of records at North Devon Hospital earlier in the year, the trust gave us a detailed action plan which included some key changes to the documentation being used to ensure good care and treatment. They told us they would be fully compliant by the end of September.

“We are satisfied that the trust is already taking action. If we had any further concerns for people’s safety, we would take action straight away. In the meantime we will continue to monitor the hospital – and we will check to see that all the improvements have been made in further unannounced inspections.”

For help in gaining or maintaining your CQC registration contact one of our experts today