Grantham Hospital’s management trust is taken out of special measures
The trust which runs Grantham Hospital has been taken out of special measures.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) announced yesterday (Thursday) that the decision was made in recognition of months of work to improve services.
The decision was made by the NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA) following a Care Quality Commission re-inspection in February and a recommendation made by the Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Mike Richards.
But the trust, which was put into special measures in July 2013, still requires improvement, according to inspectors.
Jane Lewington, trust chief executive, said: “I am always so proud of our staff’s dedication and commitment to delivering compassionate and high quality care, but today I am beyond proud. It is the hard work, the passion and the resilience of our staff that has led to the Trust being taken out of special measures.
“I cannot overstate the massive progress we have made as a trust over the last 20 months. The CQC inspectors recognised the continuing improvements we’ve made to the quality and safety of our care. The CQC have said quite clearly that the trust has taken ‘significant action’ since the last inspection in 2014 and made a ‘substantial’ number of improvements. Patients can be confident in our staff and in our services.
“Although the trust’s overall rating of “requires improvement” remains the same, the detail behind this is very different from last year - 83 per cent of our ratings are now ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ – 47 per cent more than last year.
“Our priorities are now to continue to recruit more nurses, doctors and clinical staff into post, to fundamentally review our patient appointment systems and to complete the work on improving the hospital environment.”
The trust was put in special measures in 2013 following concerns about death rates and standards of care at the Trust’s Pilgrim Hospital, Grantham and District Hospital, Lincoln County Hospital and Louth Hospital.
The CQC inspection team rated that overall the Trust “requires improvement”. But it continues to rate staff to be caring and compassionate, highlighted significant engagement with clinical staff, and outstanding practice in the recruitment of staff.
The CQC inspection team looked at eight service areas across four hospitals: A&E, medical care, surgery, critical care, maternity, children and young people, end of life care, and outpatients. Most services, and the Trust overall, were assessed against five domains: whether they were safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Against this, the Trust received three ‘good’, and two ‘requires improvement’ ratings. This compares to 2014 when there were four areas which ‘required improvement’ and one ‘good’. Out of a possible 113 individual ratings, 94 areas were rated as good or outstanding.
