Spot checks for hospital trust

An under-fire hospital trust will be subject to spot checks from health bosses in the coming weeks.

The planned and unplanned visits by members of the Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will look at staffing, pre A&E corridor management and observations at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford.

They will also look at the environment and compliance with policy and process.

It comes after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was highly critical of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals (SaTH) Trust which runs the two hospitals.
Simon Freeman, accountable officer for the CCG, said they have to “support” SaTH.

He continued: “The best way to do that is to be a supportive and critical friend and that is what we will do to the best of our ability.”

Dr Freeman added: “It has been a difficult period for all involved.

“Our single focus was discharging our duty of care in respect of the difficulties facing services and reporting those.

“We have demonstrated that for many months by expressing a level of concern around the management of patients and the CQC inspections were very welcome and we want to see what will come out of that.”

But Dr Deborah Shepherd said it was up to the CCG to ensure SaTH is “held to account”.

She continued: “Some things are out of their control but I think there are other things that they could be addressing.

“Going forward there are plans to change the way services are provided and we need to assure ourselves that these services will be safer than the situation we find ourselves in now.”

Other members of the CCG board called for assurances for patients.

Dr Julian Povey, chairman of the CCG, commented: “The vast majority of patients receive a high level of service and staff are working their utmost best.
“But we cannot forget some patients have been harmed, that has happened, and we have to be looking into that.”

Dawn Clarke, director of Nursing Quality and Patient Experience, who presented the update to yesterday's CCG board meeting, said the visits would have “clear purpose, documented outcome and assessment”.

She also told members that they had done “everything they could”, but added: “We can always do more.”