The Care Quality Commission (CWC) has told Barts Health NHS Trust it must make ‘urgent improvements to protect patients’ at Whipps Cross University Hospital after issuing three formal warnings following unannounced inspections at the facility in Leytonstone in May and June. The inspection team included ‘experts by experience’ (service users), a practising midwife, and a practising surgical unit manager.
The warning notices set out the hospital’s failure to meet national regulations in three specific areas: cleanliness and infection control; safety, and availability and suitability of equipment. Initially, inspectors visited the A&E, elderly and outpatients departments over two days, subsequently spending a further two days in the maternity and surgery departments. Overall, the hospital was found to be failing to meet 10 of the 16 national standards of quality and safety.
Matthew Trainer, regional director of the CQC in London, said: “We have very serious concerns about the care and treatment patients have been receiving at Whipps Cross University Hospital. The reports published today show a systematic catalogue of failings across the departments we looked at during our inspections in May and June.
“We found that, in places, the hospital was unsafe and dirty, and that staff didn’t always show patients the compassion that people deserve. Patients were not receiving the care and support they should have been able to expect – and in some cases, this was putting them at risk of harm.”
In addition to finding that patients were spending too long in A&E, and that those on some elderly care wards did not always receive ‘appropriate care and treatment’, maternity wards were found to be ‘dirty in places, with overfilled bins and stained floors, walls, and curtains’. Infection control practice amongst staff was ‘observed to be poor on some occasions’, with new-born babies and mothers ‘not protected from the risk of infection’.
CQC inspectors will return unannounced soon to check that the Hospital has made the changes required.”
The Trust say it has ‘already put in place robust action plans’ to address the issues raised. Barts Health Chief Executive, Peter Morris, said: “Barts Health is committed to ensuring the safety and welfare of every one of our patients, and we are extremely sorry for the failings in some of our services at Whipps Cross Hospital. We have taken immediate action to rectify the failures to ensure we meet standards across the hospital at all times.”
