Hospitals shamed over patient care (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Hospitals shamed over patient care

4:05am Sunday 29th November 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share

Hospital watchdogs came under fresh pressure to intervene to protect patient safety after research found 12 trusts were "significantly underperforming".

The latest analysis by the Dr Foster organisation also identified 27 trusts with unusually high mortality rates - totalling 5,000 more deaths than expected.

Bottom of its league table was Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which has had a task force sent in to sort out failings.

Monitor, the body that regulates foundation trusts, stepped in after a report slammed poor hygiene and standards of care and a death rate around a third higher than the national average. Among the 12 worst performers in the new table, the Observer reported, were eight recently judged by the Care Quality Commission watchdog to be good or excellent.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham ordered an urgent review amid mounting anger over standards and Tory claims the entire inspection process was not "fit for purpose". But the chairman of the CQC, Baroness Barbara Young, has told him she does not believe any other trusts are performing badly enough to merit another task force-style response.

"While we are monitoring closely a number of other trusts where we have concerns, at this stage we currently have no evidence that there is another trust in England where we would take action of the kind we have taken at Basildon," she said in a letter.

The Dr Foster research uncovered widespread safety issues including 39% of trusts "failing to investigate unexpected deaths or cases of serious harm on their wards", the newspaper said. Items such as swabs and drill bits were left inside patients after surgery in at least 209 cases and surgeons operated on the wrong part of a body at least 82 times, it reported.

The three worst-performing NHS trusts overall in the Dr Foster figures were Basildon, Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare Trust and The Lewisham Hospital Trust.

The remaining nine were reported to be: University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust; Weston Area Health Trust; South London Healthcare Trust; Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust; University Hospital of South Manchester Foundation Trust; St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals Trust; Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust; Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Hospitals Foundation Trust; and Hereford Hospitals Trust.

Basildon was also bottom of the table for mortality rates, it said, followed by the Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

• Print
• Email
• Share