Agenda item

This report updates the Board on the findings of the Care Quality Commission’s Quality Report into Medway NHS Foundation Trust.

Discussion:

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Medway NHS Foundation Trust presented a report updating the Board on the findings of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Quality Report into the Trust. The Trust had accepted the findings of the CQC report, which included a number of issues that it had already identified for action. In recognition of the support that would be required from partners, a quality summit had been held at which all participants committed to working with the Trust to bring about the required changes.

The Trust’s improvement plan centred around six key activities, as set out in the report. One of these was to modernise the Emergency Department and an examination of the data had revealed that, since 5 March 2016, the department had dealt with 300 presentations and 100 ambulances a day which represented a significant increase.  The Trust would be moving at pace to create a department that could cope with these pressures. Another key activity was to accelerate the Trust’s recruitment drive to reduce the dependency on interims and agency staff.

Members of the Board raised a number of points and questions which were responded to by the CEO and the Chairman of the Trust.  These included:

·         Maternity Unit – From recent personal experience, a member paid tribute to staff in the Maternity Unit. The CEO of the Trust stated that the CQC had identified this as an area of good practice.

·         Working with GP’s to help reduce the pressure on the Emergency Department – In response to a question on whether GP’s were advising patients to visit the Emergency Department to receive specialist treatment, the CEO advised that the Trust buddied Clinical Directors with GPs. 25% of all presentations were referred to the Trust’s on-site GP service and clinics had been introduced to help ensure that patients were seen quickly by a specialist. In addition, a service had recently been introduced which provided GP’s with a single phone number that they could use to seek a specialist opinion; it was anticipated that this would reduce the number of patients being referred to the Emergency Department by GP’s.

·         Improvement plan – The six point improvement plan was welcomed as it provided clarity on the activities that would have a positive impact.

·         Finding different ways to support people – This would be necessary as the evidence showed that generally people were living longer with disease and disability and were therefore presenting at Emergency Departments with severe disease.

·         Administrative issues – In response to a question on whether improvements would be put in place to reduce administrative errors in relation to clinic appointments etc, the CEO advised that a sequential approach to improvements was being adopted. Once the clinical model was fully functional, work would commence on redesigning administrative systems.

·         The Trust’s financial position – In response to a question about the Trust’s ability to deliver improvements with an increasing budget deficit, the CEO said that the Trust would continue to invest in key areas. One of these was recruitment and reducing the reliance on agency staff would have a significant positive impact on the budget. A financial recovery plan would be put in place as a sub-plan of the improvement plan. 

Decision:

The Board noted the report.