A troubled health trust has passed a safety inspection.
Bosses of Pennine Acute Trust, which recently announced up to 1,000 jobs could be lost as they try to save £50m, has been given a clean bill of health by independent regulators.
Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission did have some concerns over the way drugs are managed and patient record keeping and called for improvements. But they said the systems were not unsafe.
The CQC found the Royal Oldham, Rochdale Infirmary, North Manchester General and Fairfield General, in Bury meet all the essential standards and outcomes of quality and patient safety.
Inspectors suggested improvements in these areas and trust bosses will have to hand in an action plan addressing the concerns within 28 days.
Marian Carroll, director of nursing at Pennine, said: “We have made some real improvement in our quality of care over the last year.
“We are pleased and encouraged that the CQC has, during its review of our hospitals, found that the Trust meets the essential standards for quality and safety.
“Over the years we have put significant improvements into clinical practice and cleanliness of the wards.
“Patient safety and improving the quality of care and the patient experience continue to be the Trust’s top priority.”
The trust received a series of routine spot checks and visits by the CQC at each of its hospitals in January.
The inspectors visited nine wards across the Trust’s hospitals and spent four hours on each ward.
They observed how people were being cared for, interviewed patients and staff and checked trust and patient records.
Inspectors found staff did not always keep records of medicines being given to patients.
And an internal audit report revealed that temperatures of drug fridges were not always monitored as expected.
Other reports showed not all care is recorded properly in patient notes with times, dates and signatures.
But on their inspections they found that ‘in general’ records were correctly completed.
Following the inspection bosses at the trust, which employs just under 10,000 people, said they plan to cut staffing over the next four years through non-replacement. Unions claimed such a drastic cull of staff would inevitably affect services.
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Well that really is excellent news, the trust has reached an excellent standard of service to serve the needs of Rochdale... quite lucky timing too, as it's JUST in time for 1000 jobs to be taken out of the equation, I'm not worried though, I'm sure the remaining nurses and doctors will easily be able to cover the loss of staff, and huge extra workload, without it having to affect the standard of care in the least!
Sigggghhhhhhhh.....
Alittle to late as far as i am concerned i lost my mum thanks to that hospital bug....Funny never had all this back in the days when we had matrons on the wards!!....And i am not gonna be positive about this story as saturday you will be saying something completly different like everything else you misjudge peoples minds say one thing then another days later!!.............
no problem maintaining these standards, they just have to carry on postponong operations at the same rate. No patients, no reports, no cleaning, no problem!
Wait until the cuts take effect !!! pretty different story then I'll bet !!
Speaking of local hospitals has anyone seen a single poster or recieved a single email with details of the proposed March in Rochdale called by Jean Asworth on the 26 March 2011 , or is this being organised as some kind of cutting edge concept exercise in collective telepathy by our local Liberal Democrats and Uri Geller ?
There are still far too many patients aged 60+ being admitted with non life threatening medical problems,and moved from one clean ward to a dirty ward,in order to create bed space.
They then are sometimes not given proper assistance to eat or drink,develop infections of either chest or blood,and are not helped to take tablets etc.Not cleaned up properly,as SOME modern nurses ,especially the ones who have been to University,seem to think that it is beneath their educational standards to be wiping bums etc.
I know this from personal experience of having lost both a Mother and a Mother in law in 2 of their Hospitals,in a space of less than 3 Years .Complaints were made and Pennine Acute ,in one case in particular ,received much criticism from the very same watchbody.The mortality rates are still far too high, for people with non life threatening conditions, at the point of admission to the Hospital.I shudder to think how standards will deterioate,with the loss of front line staff.I hope there will be MANY many more unannounced inspections ,and if need be vigorous action taken against the Trust.
One thing that is particularly disturbing and crops up time and time again,is when the Trust admits negligence,no one is ever held to blame.Surely with proper record keeping and areas of responsibilities,this can change?
Despite the many comments and concerns about lack of care and poor cleanliness, the managers, under managers, middle managers, senior managers and district managers together with IT managers, ward managers, bed managers, theatre managers, health and safety managers, site managers, security managers all tell us that 50% of their staff (about 3 of them) have had a 'personal review'. Oh joy! Couple this with their mission statement and patients will leap from their beds with happiness.