Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is rated Good by CQC for Caring - but overall Requires Improvement

Published: 15 July 2016 Page last updated: 12 May 2022
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The Chief Inspector of Hospitals has found that Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, south west London, has been rated overall as Requires Improvement, though Caring at the trust is Good.

The trust was visited by Care Quality Commission inspectors in January 2016. They found the trust Requires Improvement for safety, being effective, responsive and well-led.

To read the full report and ratings for all key services click on the link below www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RAX on or after 14 July 2016.

CQC’s announced inspection which was shortly followed by an unannounced inspection later in the month, was part of the commission’s comprehensive scheduled inspection programme.

During the inspection, CQC reviewed eight core services. Five of these: surgery; critical care; maternity and gynaecology; services for children and young people and end of life care were rated as Good overall.

Urgent and emergency services, medical care, outpatients and diagnostic imaging, Required Improvement.

Kingston Hospital is a medium sized hospital located within Kingston-Upon-Thames. The hospital has 534 beds, 450 of which are general and acute, 72 within maternity and 12 for critical care.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said:

“We were impressed with caring at the trust. We also saw several areas of outstanding practice. This included a comprehensive dementia strategy, which enabled staff to support people living with dementia.

“Staff demonstrated an impressive understanding of their role in addressing the needs of people at the end of life and of providing sensitive and compassionate care.

“However, Kingston needs to improve in several key areas. The emergency department was not meeting the national target of seeing and treating 95% of patients within four hours of arrival. Ambulance handover times were not always achieved.

“The trust needs to ensure that medicines are not accessible to non-authorised persons. It needs to ensure the management, governance and culture in the emergency department supports the delivery of high quality care.

“Mental capacity assessments were not always carried out where patients required mechanical restraint on medical wards.

“Utility rooms containing hazardous cleaning chemicals should be locked.

“In addition the trust should ensure better compliance with hand hygiene and cleaning of clinical equipment in the emergency department. It should ensure adequate and safe facilities for patients with mental health needs.

“We were impressed that staff across all levels of the organisation considered the culture of the organisation to be one focused on ensuring that patients received safe, high quality care. Staff were well versed in the values of the organisation and this came through when we met staff.”

Ends

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Find out more

Read reports from our checks on the standards at Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.