The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated the overall care at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust as outstanding following its routine inspection in March 2016.
The CQC assessed nine core services across the Trust against five domains: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
End of life care was rated overall as Outstanding, with surgery, maternity and gynaecology services, services for children and young people and outpatient and diagnostic services each rated overall as Good.
Feedback from patients across the Trust was also positive. The inspection found that patients and their families are involved as partners in their care and empowered and supported to maximise their independence.
The CQC found many areas of good practice across the organisation. Out of the 53 indicators which make up the Trust’s overall rating 36 are rated Good and 3 are rated Outstanding.
Whether services are effective and well-led were also rated as Good overall. However, the report also identified areas for improvement and the CQC have rated the Trust overall as Requires Improvement.
James Scott, Chief Executive at the RUH said: “Whilst we are disappointed with our Trust’s overall rating, we are delighted the CQC have rated the overall care given to our patients as Outstanding.
“It’s also important that the CQC recognised a strong safety culture at the Trust. They found openness and transparency about safety is actively encouraged and supported by leaders at all levels in our organisation.”
Helen Blanchard Director of Nursing and Midwifery at the RUH added: “It’s testament to all our staff that the inspection team found our patients are treated with kindness, compassion, courtesy, dignity and respect throughout our organisation.
“This is reflected in the CQC rating every service they assessed as either Good or Outstanding in relation to patient care.”
The Trust has acknowledged there are areas in which it needs to improve and is already working to address these.
Helen continued: “We fully accept that there are some areas in which we need to improve. We continue to make sure that we have the right staffing levels across our hospitals, and we have been actively trying to recruit more nurses in particular for a number of months.
“Work to address issues in relation to documentation and record keeping in some departments was already underway at the time of the inspection and we will continue to build on this.
James concludes: “We recognise, and it’s no secret, that our hospital is under pressure, particularly in Urgent and Emergency Care, and this is something we are working to address.
“Our staff work incredibly hard and I’m pleased the CQC recognised that despite the challenges we face, our patient feedback is overwhelmingly positive.”
“We also know that we can’t look at our Emergency Department in isolation from the rest of the health and social care system, so we continue to work closely with our health and social care partners to look at ways to improve patient flow through the hospital so that patients can be discharged in a safe, appropriate and timely manner.”
“It’s important that we not only make improvements where identified, but that we also share the areas of outstanding practice identified in this report.”
