TAMESIDE Hospital is taking urgent steps to improve communications with staff after being criticised by inspectors.

A report from the Commission for Health Improvement highlighted how morale and patient care were being compromised by poor communications and recommended that the NHS trust should focus more closely on recruitment, management, education and training.

Among its criticisms, the report said nurses had limited access to out-of-hours medical advice, which led to treatment delays and increased risk.

However, the inspectors also singled out areas for praise, including the hospital's programme for patients with heart problems, the obstetrics and gynaecology department's high-quality research and the dedication and commitment of many staff.

Trust bosses have already taken steps to address the problems.

Dr Peter Homa, chief executive of the CHI, which carries out routine assessments of every hospital in the country to ensure the quality of patient care, said: "It is encouraging to see that Tameside and Glossop Acute Services NHS Trust has already worked on a number of areas highlighted by the review.

"Everyone knows that standards vary across the NHS. Standards will be raised by CHI across the board by highlighting good practice and by not hiding its findings where improvement is needed.

"The key to CHI is that we don't just say what we've found, we help the health service to develop plans for improvement."

Christine Green, chief executive of Tameside and Glossop Acute Service NHS Trust, said: "Reports of this nature always identify both good practice and areas for improvement, and the trust has already held its first action planning day to consider these issues. "This involved a wide cross-section of staff and others associated with the hospital and began to prepare an action plan to build further on good practice and to address those areas where improvements can be made."

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