Shropshire Community Health Trust 'requires improvement' says CQC inspection report

The trust which runs Shropshire's community hospitals has been given a ‘requires improvement’ rating by the Care Quality Commission.

The Care Quality Commission said Shropshire Community Health Trust needed to improve in four out of five key areas following an inspection which took place in March.

The report said there was insufficient numbers of experienced and suitably qualified staff to meet the needs of service users within the children and adolescent mental health service’s learning disability team.

Inspectors also said staffing and skill mix levels within the community nursing teams were not reviewed systematically and at regular intervals to ensure that the needs of patients’ were met.

The trust was also criticised for not having a strategy for end of life care.

The one element of the inspection which did receive a ‘Good’ rating was the care element, with staff being praised for treating patients with kindness, dignity and respect.

Jan Ditheridge, Shropshire Community Health Trust Chief Executive, who responded to the report said: “The CQC today published its report rating our organisation Requires Improvement following their inspection visit in March 2016. An inspection on this scale is a first for Shropcom and we welcome it in our persistent drive for patient centred quality improvement.

“While the overall rating was Requires Improvement, many of our services and CQC domains were rated Good. We weren't surprised that all of our services were rated Good for caring and I was pleased to see that Children's and Dental services were recognised with a Good rating for all of their domains."

Jan Ditheridge accepted that the report showed that more work needed to be done adding: “We know there is more work to do to achieve at least Good in some of our other services and we will use this report to continue to drive that improvement. With the support of our commissioners and partners we know are capable of more and better.

“We must not forget we have highly skilled, committed staff working in challenging environments, doing amazing things every day. Our 1,600 members of staff deliver services that have 750,000 patient contacts every year from more than 110 sites spread across an area of nearly 1,350 square miles, which is a significant challenge for a small NHS trust. Despite these challenges, our staff have been rated us as Good for caring by our patients and carers, which mean people feel they are well supported and cared for and treated with dignity and respect – and this really is at the heart of everything we aim to do.”

Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust provides community-based health services for adults and children in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin. These range from district nursing, health visiting and running four community hospitals through to providing specialist community care.

The trust runs community hospitals in Bridgnorth, Whitchurch, Ludlow and Bishops Castle.

The full report can be read at www.shropscommunityhealth.nhs.uk/cqc.