Monitor has formally intervened to require the appointment of a task force that will work closely with the Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to ensure improvements are made within a set timescale after significant deficiencies were found in cleaning, hygiene, infection control, and nursing standards at the Basildon University Hospital.
An 8 October Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection found “unacceptable cleaning standards”, including breaches in infection control standards, for which the CQC issued a warning notice. The Trust said many of the problems focused on the hospital’s A&E Department, “about to undergo phase two of a £22 million expansion and refit”. Although it had made “multi-million pound investments” in new buildings in recent years, it acknowledged the need to bring older hospital areas up to the same standard. Concerns over cleanliness, particularly, were heightened by BBC reports that CQC inspectors saw floors and curtains “stained with blood”; “blood-spattered on trays used to carry equipment”; “badly soiled mattresses in the A&E department, with stains soaked through to the foam filling”; “once-only” items still in use; equipment in resuscitation areas “past its sell-by date”, and suction machines “with fluid inside and out with what looked like mould growing on them”. Acknowledging there was “no excuse for poor cleaning and housekeeping practices”, the Trust has agreed an action plan with its cleaning contractor that included more high-level supervision and monitoring, additional cleaning staff, replacement of all curtains, and a planned renewal cycle. Meanwhile all A&E mattresses were changed, and checks undertaken on all other trolley mattresses. The Trust would from now on routinely examine all trolley mattresses, while all clinical equipment had been checked and cleaned where necessary, and would be “more stringently monitored” CEO Alan Whittle was “confident” the action the Trust and its cleaning contractor had taken would return the Trust to compliance. He also thanked the CQC for pointing out that the Trust’s infection rates had fallen year-on-year, and were “lower than the majority of similar Trusts”. Explaining the appointment of the task force, Monitor said that, while the Trust had “made some progress in addressing the issues”, the regulators were not satisfied with the pace, nor that the Trust Board currently had “the capacity to deliver the improvements within an acceptable timescale”. The Trust has agreed “objective performance metrics” for monthly review and immediately strengthened its senior clinical capacity. Monitor CEO Dr William Moyes said: “We will be reviewing the Trust’s performance regularly and in detail; if we don’t see measurable results quickly we will take further action.”
