The Care Quality Commission
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Archived: Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Plantation Lane, Mile Oak, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B78 3NG (01827) 263800

Provided and run by:
Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Important: This service was previously managed by a different provider - see old profile
Important: This service is now managed by a different provider - see new profile

All Inspections

7 - 9 July 2015

During an inspection looking at part of the service

The Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital is part of Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The hospital provides a number of services to the local population of Tamworth, working closely with neighbouring hospitals and NHS trusts.

We inspected this hospital in July 2015 as part of the comprehensive inspection programme.

Overall, we have rated this hospital as good. We saw that services were caring and compassionate. We also saw that people had good outcomes because they receive effective care and treatment that met their needs. Systems and processes were in place to ensure patients were kept safe and were able to respond to local need.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • Staff were caring and compassionate towards patients and their relatives. Patients’ dignity and privacy was ensured and we saw many examples of good care right across the trust from staff at all levels.
  • The hospital delivered an effective and responsive service that met the needs of the local community.
  • The numbers of patients using the day case unit had declined and there were concerns regarding the long term sustainability. A decision to close the unit was postponed until 2016, following consultation with staff and the local community.
  • There was a strong open culture and staff were encouraged and supported to report incidents. There were clears systems in place to ensure lessons were learnt and services developed as a result

We saw several areas of good practice:

  • There was good joined up working in the minor injuries unit with other specialists such as the mental health crisis team and the mental capacity service team within the hospital.
  • The five steps to safer surgery (part of the World Health Organisation (WHO) surgical safety checklist) was said by staff to be well embedded and the latest audit report showed high levels of compliance.
  • Staff told us senior leaders and the executive team were approachable and visited the hospital on a regular basis.
  • The surgical team were working towards Joint Advisory Group (JAG) accreditation for gastrointestinal endoscopy services.

However, there were also areas where the trust needs to make improvements:

Importantly the trust must:

  • The trust must review arrangements for access to x-ray imaging after 5pm weekdays and on Saturday afternoons and Sundays for MIU patients.
  • The trust must support the MIU to audit its performance in order to assess the effectiveness of their own practice and to identify and manage risks.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

24-25 April 2014

During a routine inspection

Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital is one of the three locations from which Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation provides services. The other locations are Queen’s Hospital and Samuel Johnson Community Hospital. We inspected all three sites between 24 and 25 April 2014.

The hospital has one inpatient ward providing rehabilitation, care of older people and general medical care. There is a minor injury service that around 30,000 people attended in the last 12 months. There are consultant and nurse-led clinics and a dedicated day case surgery offering a range of minor and intermediate surgical procedures. The day case surgical unit sees on average around 29 patients a week. The inspection team only inspected the surgical service.

The trust had a significantly higher than expected mortality rate from April 2012 to March 2013. As a result, the trust was included in Professor Sir Bruce Keogh’s review of trusts in 2013. The overview report Review into the Quality of Care and Treatment provided by 14 Hospital Trusts in England is available on the NHS Choices website. A number of areas of good practice were identified as part of the review. However, the report identified a number of areas of concern, such as no systematic approach in place for ensuring the collection, reporting and action on information about the quality of services. It also found that there was a lack of support for junior doctors, medical staffing levels and skills mix were not appropriate and that equipment safety checks had not been carried out.

We inspected this hospital as part of our in-depth hospital inspection programme. Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was considered to be a high-risk service. When we inspected the trust in April 2014, 14 of the 61 recommended actions following the Keogh inspection had still to be completed.

Overall, we rated the Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital as requires improvement.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • Ward staff were committed to delivering high quality care and saw patient experience as a priority.
  • The trust’s infection control policy and procedures were followed.
  • All clinical areas and theatres were visibly clean and tidy.
  • Staff we spoke with demonstrated an awareness and knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act.
  • Specific pain tools were used for some patients, such as the Abbey Pain Scale, to support patients on the dementia care pathway.
  • A proactive approach was taken to discharge planning, starting at the patient’s admission.
  • The majority of theatre equipment was overdue for replacement.
  • Incident reporting systems and processes were being used. Staff received feedback from incidents reported, but investigations into incidents were not always carried out in a timely manner.
  • The World Health Organisation (WHO) surgical safety checklist was used for all patients having surgery, minimising common and avoidable risks that could endanger the lives and wellbeing of these patients, but it was not always fully completed.

There were areas of poor practice where the trust needs to make improvements. Importantly, the hospital must:

  • Review the theatre asset register and prioritise the replacement of the theatre equipment that is overdue.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

July 2014