West Midlands Hospital

Updated 5 July 2022

West Midlands Hospital is operated by Ramsay Health Care UK Operations Limited. The hospital opened in 1988. It is a private hospital in Halesowen, West Midlands. The hospital primarily serves these communities and the surrounding areas. It also accepts patient referrals from outside this area. The hospital offers both privately funded and NHS activity across a range of specialities. The hospital provides surgery, endoscopy, outpatients and diagnostic imaging.

Patients can access a range of surgical procedures, outpatient appointments and a physiotherapy service. Medical treatment and surgical procedures are delivered under specialities such as general surgery, orthopaedics, gynaecology, urology, and cosmetic surgery.

The service only treats adults and does not treat anyone under the age of 18 years.

The hospital has 34 beds with en-suite facilities. Facilities include two operating theatres and an endoscopy room, and a three bay recovery area. Outpatient and diagnostic services are available including six consulting rooms and x-ray. MRI and CT scans are provided by Ramsay Diagnostics UK. An offsite hydrotherapy pool is available for patients requiring this as part of the physiotherapy services.

All day case surgery procedures, including ophthalmology procedures, and pre-operative assessments take place at a local sister hospital also run by the provider.

The hospital is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Family planning
• Surgical procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

The hospital has a registered manager who has been in post since January 2021. The registered manager is also the Hospital Director.

We have previously inspected this location in March 2014, June 2016 and August 2018. In our last inspection in 2018 we found a breach of Regulation 17 (2)c HSCA 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Good governance. The location was issued with Requirement Notice for this breach. We do not have evidence that the location has returned to full compliance.

The main service provided by this hospital was surgery. This was the only service inspected at this location during this inspection, although the location also provides medical care (endoscopy), outpatients and diagnostic imaging core services.

Updated 5 July 2022

Our rating of this location went down. We rated it as requires improvement because:

• Staff did not all have training in key skills or were not trained to the required level. Development needs and poor performance were not consistently identified as not all staff had received annual appraisals.
• Records of care were incomplete with psychological assessment of patients undergoing cosmetic surgery procedures not being routinely completed. First stage consent was not always readily available to surgeons before procedures.
• Equipment maintenance systems were not robust. Facilities were not all appropriate.
• Substances hazardous to health were not stored appropriately.
• Governance systems were not all embedded
• Sharing of information with staff was not consistent due to the lack of team meetings in some areas and no standard agenda for meetings that were held with staff.

However:

• Staff assessed risks to patients, controlled infection risk well and managed medicines well.
• Staff provided good care to patients based on evidence and achieved good outcomes. Staff treated patients kindly and with compassion and gave patients enough to eat and drink and pain relief when they needed it.
• There was a positive culture within the workforce. Staff worked well together and treated each other with respect. Staff felt well supported by leaders. There was a strong focus on personal learning and development

Updated 17 August 2018

A range of specialist consultants undertook consultations on an outpatient basis.

Outpatient facilities also included a physiotherapy department who provided post surgery rehabilitation in addition to sports injury clinics, pain management clinics and acupuncture. An offsite hydrotherapy pool was available for patient use.

The diagnostic facilities included an x-Ray department offering a range of screening and x-Ray procedures, including: on site plain x-ray and ultrasound. A mobile magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner and a computerised tomography (CT) scanner also came to the hospital; however these were offered under a different provider therefore were not included within this inspection.

Updated 5 July 2022

Our rating of this service went down. We rated it as requires improvement . See the summary above for details.