England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has found significant improvement in the quality of services during the latest inspection of Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust. As a result of the inspection, the trust is now rated as Good.
A team of inspectors from the Care Quality Commission visited in January and February to check the quality of urgent care (the provision of care in minor injury and illness units), end of life care, and community adult services. They also inspected community inpatients looking only at the safe domain. CQC also looked specifically at the organisations management and leadership to answer the key question: Is the trust well led?
The trust is now rated as Good for being safe, effective, caring, and well led. Full details of the ratings are available on our website.
At the previous inspection in June 2015, CQC found that there was a need for the trust to improve compliance for staff training. Since then, strategies had been put in place to improve compliance with mandatory training including online training workshops and the appointment of training and development nurses to facilitate local training at community hospital locations.
At this recent inspection inspectors found that the trust recognised that patients could not always access all services when they needed it. While some services were not always achieving targets for receiving treatment, departments were dealing with this risk by reviewing their waiting lists daily and implementing actions to improve performance.
The trust strategy was directly linked to their vision and values, local sustainability and transformation plans and the joint work with local mental health foundation trust (2gether NHS Foundation Trust). The trust involved clinicians, patients and groups from the local community in the development of the strategy and work with the local mental health trust.
Action had been also been taken to address most of the concerns raised following the last inspection within urgent care. Arrangements for triage had improved. It was now conducted by trained staff, in an appropriate area and in a way that they could ensure the most unwell patients were seen without delay and other patients were seen in order of priority. Patients were triaged within 15 minutes of arrival.
There was a strong and improving focus on monitoring and improving care for End of Life patients and those close to them. Staff were found to be caring and compassionate providing individual support to patients and those close to them. Staff also worked collaboratively with specialist services to ensure the best possible care for patients tailored to their needs and also actively engaged with the wider community.
The Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said:
“Since we last inspected services at Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust in June 2015 the organisation has worked to ensure that improvements have been embedded. I am pleased that the trust has taken our previous inspection reports and built on them to provide improved services to the people of Gloucestershire not only in the areas of development but also areas of strength.
“The board have ensured they and their senior managers work in an open and transparent manner with a clear desire to ensure succession planning and for staff at all levels to learn and improve.
“Some concerns remain. Some black and minority ethnic staff felt the trust could do more to recognise the needs of BME staff. I know that board members recognise that work is required to improve staff diversity and equality across the trust. .
“There are some areas for improvement particularly in developing a more systematic approach to training and we expect the executive team, with the support of their staff, to work on the issues on behalf of all of their patients. We will return in due course to check on their progress.”
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