Scarborough hospital still requires improvement says the CQC

​The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has improved the rating from requires improvement to good for medical care and has re-rated urgent and emergency care as requires improvement at Scarborough Hospital, which is run by the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

​The NHS Trust welcomed the findings of the CQC’s assessment, which followed an inspection that was carried out in October, and highlighted improvements in care, particularly within medical care services.

​The CQC said it was “disappointing that issues we highlighted at the previous inspection still hadn’t been addressed and new breaches were found”.

​Inspectors said they found continued breaches of regulations in relation to staffing, good management, and complaints.

​Dr Karen Stone, medical director atYork and Scarborough Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We welcome the CQC’s report and are pleased it recognises the improvements we’ve made, particularly in our medical care services. It’s reassuring that inspectors saw the compassionate, person-centred care our colleagues provide every day.

​“The report also clearly sets out where we must continue to improve. We acknowledge the pressures our teams are working under, particularly within urgent and emergency care, where access, patient flow and ambulance handover performance must improve, and in medical care, where some patients have experienced delays in accessing specialist support.”

​In its inspection of urgent and emergency services, the CQC re-rated the ‘safe, effective, responsive and well-led’ categories as requiring improvement. Caring dropped from good to requires improvement.

​Inspectors found continued breaches of regulations in relation to medical staff training, access to services and consent, and the CQC also identified new breaches in relation to infection prevention and control, and assessing people’s needs.

​Karen Knapton, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said: “In urgent and emergency care, it was concerning that people couldn’t always access care, support and treatment when they needed it. At the time of the inspection, the number of people admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival was 62 per cent, which was worse than the England average.

​“Additionally, ambulance handovers weren’t consistently carried out within the required timeframes due to high demand. Although hospital staff were working hard to try and see people in a timely way, only 40 per cent were handed over to the hospital within 15 minutes, compared with the national average of 65 per cent. The delay to people receiving appropriate care could put them at risk and put other people in the community at risk who required an ambulance.”

​Ms Knapton said: “However, in both departments, people told us that staff treated them with kindness, empathy and compassion. Across all wards, staff interactions with people and those close to them were consistently warm and respectful.

​“We have told the trust where it needs to make the necessary improvements and will continue to monitor both services to ensure people stay safe while this happens.”

​Commenting on the findings, the York and Scarborough NHS Trust’s medical director, Dr Stone, said: “We continue to take action across all areas highlighted, including strengthening training compliance, workforce capacity, infection prevention and control, medicines and environmental safety, and how we monitor and support patients while they are waiting.

​“I would like to thank all of our teams for their professionalism, kindness and dedication. We will continue building on the progress made and work closely with the CQC and our partners to provide safe, high-quality care for our communities.”