The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has today (Thursday, October 17th) released its report following an inspection of health services provided by Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Overall, the Trust remains rated as ‘Requires Improvement’, with the CQC praising the kindness and compassion of staff and rating every single service as ‘GOOD’ or ‘OUTSTANDING’ for the care provided to patients.
During June 2019 the CQC carried out a full inspection of the Trust which was assessed on the following five areas overall, which were each given a separate rating:
| Are services safe? | Requires Improvement |
| Are services effective? | Requires Improvement |
| Are services caring? | Good |
| Are services responsive? | Requires Improvement |
| Are services well-led? | Inadequate |
Kevin McGee, Chief Executive of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said:
“The Trust accepts the findings of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) inspection carried out in June 2019.
“Our patients are always our priority so we are sorry where we have not delivered the high standard of care we aim to provide.
“We are determined to provide the very best care for our patients, and I am confident that with a new and committed leadership team supporting a truly caring workforce, we will deliver significant improvements that we can all be proud of.
“It was positive to see the CQC inspectors stress throughout the report that our staff were respectful, caring and kind. The report also acknowledged areas of outstanding practice across the Trust. Our staff have done us proud and it is important that we, as senior leaders, begin to fix the issues in terms of culture and learning.
“The CQC has a number of actions that we must take and we are focused on completing those actions. We will also continue to work closely with the CQC, service commissioners, staff and stakeholders to ensure we provide a better service.
“There is a lot of work to do quickly, especially around performance, leadership, staff engagement, governance and learning lessons. The people who use our services deserve the best and we will work tirelessly with our dedicated staff to turn things around as a matter of urgency.
“We are determined to rise to the challenge and have already started to implement changes that we believe will make major improvements to the services we deliver.
“We have agreed a major investment into a programme of Quality Improvement and the board has approved investment into more senior nurse staffing posts.
“We have started a major staff engagement programme with a series of Big Conversations with staff and regular senior leader visits across the organisation. Working closely with our staff will help us make the improvements we need for our patients.”
Dr Amanda Doyle OBE, chief clinical officer for NHS Blackpool and NHS Fylde and Wyre Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), said: “We recognise the concerns raised by the CQC in their report and are committed to working with the Trust to support them to address these issues.
“While there is plenty to do to make services better, it is important to note that the CQC’s report does highlight the incredible kindness and compassion of staff at the Trust. With a committed and caring workforce already in place, we have solid foundations on which to build.”