CQC Demands Urgent Improvements In Surgery At Royal Sussex County Hospital

Thursday, 1 December 2022 02:00

By Dominic Kureen @WriteOnDom

Royal Sussex County Hospital By Julian P Guffogg

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is demanding improvements after taking urgent action to keep people safe in Sussex.

It follows an unannounced focused inspection of surgical services at the Royal Sussex County Hospital part of University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.

The inspection in August was prompted following concerns received about the safety and quality of the upper gastrointestinal services surgery at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

The inspection was also to follow up on the progress of improvements that CQC previously told the trust to make in surgical services more widely.

This happened when they were issued with a warning notice and urgent conditions were imposed on them to ensure these were done rapidly.

Following the inspection, CQC took urgent action to suspend the activity of planned upper gastrointestinal surgery at the Royal Sussex County Hospital site.

This was a focused inspection and does not impact on the overall rating for the service which remains inadequate overall.

Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC head of hospital inspection, said:

“Following our inspection of surgery at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, I am concerned our teams have not seen improvements, particularly in the upper gastrointestinal services.

"The lack of (urgency to make changes) means we have taken action to suspend non-urgent upper gastrointestinal services surgery until we are assured the trust can keep people safe.

"The trust leadership need to take ownership of the issues they are facing by having far better governance and tackling the issues we have highlighted.

“We will re-inspect to ensure improvements are being made and won’t hesitate to take further action if needed to protect patients.”

Findings from the inspection included:

All nursing staff on both the gastrointestinal surgical ward and the gastrology ward told inspectors that the wards were short staffed.

Staff told inspectors there was a heavy reliance on agency staff and that the insufficient numbers of experienced staff meant there was not enough support for junior team members.

Clinical outcome data for mortality at the Royal Sussex County hospital was twice the national average when compared to other NHS trusts, further raising concerns to inspectors.

The full report has been published on the website.