Royal Cornwall Hospitals should go into special measures

The latest inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has suggested that Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust should be placed into special measures.

The inspectorate said that patients had suffered harm as a result of waiting too long for care, as the trust was ‘struggling to deal with the flow of patients’. The impact of waiting longer on individual patients was not being assessed well enough and there were no clear plans to manage and reduce the backlogs.

The CQC also reported that safety was not a sufficient priority in surgery, resulting in significant numbers of serious incidents and never events. Additionally, the specialist palliative care team for end of life care was too small to meet national guidance and there were not enough midwives deployed to provide a safe service in all areas at all times.

Ted Baker, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “During this inspection and in our previous visits to the Royal Cornwall Hospital we have found persistent evidence of care that falls below those standards. As a result patients have been let down - and some have been placed at risk. It is clear that these are not isolated lapses. I am concerned that the management systems to assess, monitor, and deal with risks to patients have not been operating effectively and the Board has not had the oversight that is required.

“Throughout our inspections, we have invariably found the staff to be caring and compassionate. Despite their best efforts Royal Cornwall Hospitals has a history of poor performance, with a failure to make improvements over a number of years. The time has now come to bring in external support - which is why I am recommending that the trust goes into special measures. I recognise that there over the last few years there have been periods of instability at board and executive level; it is only now that the trust has a full complement of board directors in post. I note that they have the support of the staff. There is a lot of work ahead of them to address the issues that have not always been dealt with in the past."