Portsmouth hospital’s emergency care rated inadequate

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust’s emergency care has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for issues of overcrowding and poor management.

The report criticises the Trust’s emergency department for making patients wait for long periods of time instead of being seen immediately and suggests the Trust’s inability to deal with emergency admissions was impacting other organisations - such as Southampton General Hospital and Solent NHS Trust - who had to supply care to diverted patients.

Inspectors also identified two serous incidents where response times for life threatening conditions had not been met by the South Central Ambulance Service, including a road traffic accident on the M27. This was due in part to the fact a large number of the ambulance fleet were left queuing outside the emergency department, reducing their fleet and making it hard to meet response times.

The CQC has placed conditions on the trust to ensure improvements are made immediately. These include: the Trust must ‘operate a more effective system’ in its emergency department to ensure patients are seen in a timely fashion; the Trust must stop using the large multi occupancy ambulance to accommodate emergency patients unless there was a major incident which required extra support; and the Trust must ensure there is ‘effective leadership’ within the emergency department to ensure decisions can be made and swift action can be taken to address any problems that occur.

Professor Edward Baker, CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals, said: “It is a matter of some concern that, despite previous assurances, the Trust has been failing to manage emergency admissions and this has been affecting partner organisations who may already be stretched beyond capacity.

“To ensure swift and effective improvement takes place, we have decided to place conditions on the trust’s registration to ensure that emergency admissions are managed effectively and that patients are assessed and treated in a timely manner.

“While we have placed conditions on the registration, it is clear that the trust cannot achieve these improvements on its own. It will require the combined determination and effort of the whole health and social care community in the area to ensure that the level of service that the people of Portsmouth are entitled to expect is consistently provided.”