Great Ormond Street Hospital rated as Good

The Care Quality Commission has rated Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) as Good overall.

Following the inspection in October and November 2019, the trust was rated Outstanding for being effective and caring, Good for being responsive and well-led, and Requires Improvement for being safe.

Among the areas of outstanding practice recognised by inspectors, pioneering 3D heart modelling and virtual reality to support complex cardiac surgery was highlighted. Use of a virtual reality model of a patient’s heart has been shown to assist clinicians to virtually plan and practice complex procedures ahead of surgery, reducing the risk of complications and improving outcomes.

Furthermore, GOSH participated in an initiative allowing children with complex needs and long-term conditions to become trainee biomedical scientists for the day. This helped children gain a better understanding of what happens to their blood samples.

However, CQC’s rating for safe went down from Good to Requires improvement. This is because some services did not always control infection risk well. Staff used equipment and control measures inconsistently, they did not always use hand sanitisers when entering or leaving the wards, or when moving between patient bays.

Mat Shaw, GOSH chief executive, said: “Putting the child and their family at the centre of what we do has always been our core aim at GOSH and our staff should be proud the CQC received such positive feedback from patients and their families. We are really pleased to be rated as 'Outstanding' for the effectiveness of our services and the caring way in which they are delivered by our staff. We have also improved on our overall 'Well-Led' rating, receiving a rating of 'Good', which is a real testament to people at all levels across the organisation engaging with each other in a way we hadn’t before.

“However, we know there is still work to be done. While inspectors highlighted some good safety practice, our rating in this area has gone down to 'Requires Improvement'. They also highlighted that there is more we can do to support the roll out of the Electronic Patient Record system in our Mental Health services to ensure the greatest benefit for our patients. We need to get this right. We will work together to develop plans which help us to ensure that we are creating and maintaining the safest possible environment for our patients. We are committed to sharing our progress with you so that you can be confident in the care provided. With a now fully established and engaged leadership team in place, we believe GOSH is in a really good position to drive these improvements and build on our successes for the benefit of the children and young people we look after.”