Improvements needed at ‘overcrowded’ Hampshire trust

An inspection by the Care Quality Commission has resulted in a call for improvements at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust after finding overcrowded A&E departments and patients being treated in corridors.

Following inspections of its three sites in June and July, the inspectorate has imposed six conditions on the trust’s registration, rating it as ‘requires improvement’ overall. The conditions include the need for an effective system in place to assess and monitor the ongoing care and treatment to patients while in the emergency department and ensuring there are enough suitably qualified staff on duty in the emergency department at all times to care for children.

The trust, which runs Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke, the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester and Andover War Memorial Hospital, was found to be ‘inadequate’ after inspectors witnessed overcrowding and a lack of trained staff at the emergency departments at Winchester and Basingstoke.

Ted Baker, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “Since our last inspection, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has not sustained the momentum and embeded the improvements that we saw at that inspection. As a result of this, the trust’s overall rating has moved from Good to Requires Improvement.

“We have now made it clear to the trust where it must take action to improve and have placed urgent conditions on the trust’s registration to ensure these improvements do take place. We will remove those conditions when we are satisfied that the trust has made sufficient progress to provide the quality of services that its patients are entitled to expect.”

Alex Whitfield, trust executive, said: “We have already changed the emergency department layout so that patients waiting are more visible to clinical teams. We have also increased the frequency of checks on patients. We are delighted to have secured £4 million in capital funding from the government to help further improve the layout of our emergency departments and acute assessment units and increase their capacity."