We carried out an announced inspection visit on 16 August 2016 and an unannounced inspection on 25 August 2016.
Our key findings were as follows:
Overall, the hospital was rated as good, with surgery and outpatients rated as good overall and children’s and young people’s services rated as outstanding overall.
We have rated surgery as good overall with effective and caring as outstanding but due to being requires improvement in the key question of safe we have rated the service as good overall.
The key questions of effective and caring for the hospital overall have been rated as outstanding, with well led and responsive rated as good. Overall safe has been rated as requires improvement, and the responsiveness of the service has been rated as good. Whilst we note that the children’s and young people’s service has been rated as outstanding in responsive we acknowledge that the numbers of children seen by the service is very small in comparison to the overall numbers treated by the service. Therefore, we have rated responsive as good overall.
We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:
- Staff, teams and other services worked exceptionally well together as a multidisciplinary team.
- Care provided to patients was outstanding.
- The range and selection of home cooked food available to patients, and the ability to provide a patient’s dedicated food request was outstanding.
- The hospital provided regular training events for local GPs, which demonstrated outstanding practice.
- Outcomes for people who used the service were outstanding. The hospital participated in certain national audits, including the National Joint Registry (NJR), which showed 100% consent rate.
- Outcomes from the Oxford Hip and Knee score, as well as PROMS outcomes were outstanding.
However, there were also areas of where the provider needs to make improvements.
The provider should:
- Ensure medical notes are always available for staff who are treating patients in the outpatients department.
- Ensure that assessment of Gillick competence is recorded in the patient record.
- Consider further development of the vision and strategy for the future of children’s services.
- Improve the process for treating patients with learning difficulties.
- Review the plans for the endoscopy suite to ensure it meets the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) requirements as soon as reasonably practicable.
- Undertake further audits on the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘Safer Surgery’ checklist.
- Consider the need for an admission policy setting out safe and agreed criteria for selection and admission of people using the service.
Professor Sir Mike Richards
Chief Inspector of Hospitals