Improvement required for Lewisham NHS Trust

For the third time in three years, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has been instructed to improve patient care by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Following complaints by patients and staff last year, a health watchdog inspection in March found that the South London trust ‘requires improvement’ in five areas: being safe; effective; caring; responsive and well-led.

Serving a population of half a million people across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Bexley and Greenwich, the trust is reported to have ‘significant shortages of medical, nursing and allied health professional staff in most departments’, as well as ‘medicines management processes’ that were not in line with ‘hospital policy or national guidance’. It also had 17 per cent of jobs available currently vacant.

Furthermore, inspectors raised concerns over: patients with tuberculosis not being properly isolated; staff not routinely sanitising their hands between dealing with patients and on entering and leaving wards; anaesthetists and surgeons taking outdoor bags and briefcases into anaesthetic rooms and theatres on three occasions, posing a risk of infection; poor standards of cleanliness - both of the environment and of the equipment; and inadequate provision of end of life.

Ted Baker, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “The trust has not made sufficient progress since our last comprehensive inspection. There remain areas of unresolved risks and areas for significant improvement. This included the acute emergency pathway at Queen Elizabeth Hospital."

“However, we did see good and some outstanding practice in the trust’s community services, and great credit goes to the staff in these services for the quality of care they provide.”

Dr Elizabeth Aitken, medical director for the trust, said: “The CQC report also acknowledged several areas of good and outstanding practice and highlights many areas where Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has improved since the last Trust-wide inspection in 2014. We are extremely proud of our staff who work so hard, often under significant pressures.”