Wow what a week – the local press have surpasse
d themselves with coverage of the Trust this week with two front page stories two days running! The first about our ambulance handover performance and the work we are doing to improve and work with system partners and the second about our cash flow.
I just want to reiterate our message to staff that you do not need to be worried about us running out of cash – it is a risk to us but one that we are managing to ensure we don’t do that. The way we will make sure we stay in control of our destiny is through taking a tight grip on our finances for the rest of the year then we will have money to invest back into services.
The most important news this week is the publication of our latest CQC report on Friday 12th July. I want everyone to be proud of the progress we are making and to get two outstanding ratings for services is great news and acknowledge we are on a journey to outstanding that we will achieve. I am always bowled over by the Dudley spirit I see across the Trust and we need to use this report as a spring board to make any improvements necessary in service areas to get a great inspection next time the CQC are here. We know the media will run with the negative coverage but we must remain positive and use the report as a spring board for our success to grow.
We are pleased that the hard work of our ED teams is paying off in our urgent and emergency services whose overall rating has improved to requires improvement, there remains an inadequate rating for safety but I am confident that will move next inspection. We know the work on sepsis and care of the deteriorating patient is working as shown through our SHMI data that is the lowest it has been for some time and more patients than ever are being screened and appropriately treated for sepsis. It is through the CQC process of delivering detailed weekly reports that we are probably one of the only trust in the country to have the level of detail about our ED care that means we can use evidence to improve care for our patients.
The CQC said “we saw that the Trust, emergency department leaders and staff had worked hard on their sepsis recognition and treatment throughout the year.”
We are thrilled the CQC recognised the outstanding aspects of our community end of life service which was rated good overall and received outstanding for caring. Community health services for adults also received a good overall rating. This is great recognition of the dedication and commitment to excellent patient care these teams deliver to their patients. I am confident our next inspection will see many more areas of outstanding and good practice highlighted.
Congratulations also goes to our surgery services for achieving an outstanding rating for being a caring service and are rated good overall.
Our critical care service also improved to a good rating, again recognition of the improvements made by the teams in delivering good patient care.
We are making steady progress across all of our services but we are, of course, disappointed that our diagnostic imaging services has been rated inadequate overall, and overall the Trust was inadequate for safe domain.
Our diagnostic team responded immediately to the concerns and put actions in place at the time of the inspection and are confident of our improvements. We introduced a matron to oversee quality and safety and have increased monitoring 24/7 of our inpatients waiting for imaging.
We have also conducted a comprehensive staffing review to ensure any additional posts are in the right places to support patient care and safety. We have had an external expert’s view on our staffing review and skill mix within the department. We have been successful in recruiting specialist MI and CT radiographers who are now in post and additional radiographers will be in post by September. We are continuing to invest in radiology staffing.
The inadequate rating for diagnostics also means Corbett OPD centre will be rated inadequate overall too and that is so sad for all staff involved because we know just how hard everyone works across the trust and the report does not do that justice.
Myself and the Board of Directors want to thank you all for working so hard to deliver improved services despite the day-to-day challenges to the Trust. They are confident we will continue to address issues raised by CQC and go on to make Dudley outstanding.
On that note we must also thank everyone who was recognised through our committed to excellence awards this year where we celebrated some excellent work throughout the trust. Check out the Trust for all the award winners but here are just a flavour.
