News | Hospitals report


downsmail.co.uk Hospitals need improvements


quickly, says inspection team How the individual hospitals fared


MAIDSTONE and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has been told its two hospitals need to improve. The inspection by the Care Qual- ity Commission noted that while the trust’s services were good in terms of caring, all other areas required im- provement, with its leadership deemed inadequate.


The inspection team, which in- cluded doctors, nurses, hospital managers and members of the pub- lic, visited the hospitals in Maid- stone and Pembury over three days in October and also made unan- nounced visits.


The CQC’s chief inspector of hos- pitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said: “Quick work was needed to improve the governance of the trust and of a number of the core services we inspected.


“While the trust acknowledged immediately that these improve- ments needed to be made when we told them so, we should not have needed to tell them, which highlights how much this work is needed. “The trust has told us it has lis-


Faster help for


outpatients CLOSER liaison between GPs and consultants is leading to faster re- sults and fewer hospital visits for outpatients in Maidstone and West Kent.


The Transforming Outpatients programme being trialled by NHS West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group is to be extended to involve more GP practices and additional specialities.


Through the new online Kinesis GP system, GPs are able to seek fast expert advice from local hospital consultants, initially for or- thopaedics, pain management and rheumatology.


The aim is to ensure patients re-


ceive high quality care from GPs, nurse practitioners, practice nurses and medical secretaries in a system that is financially and time efficient. The group hopes to achieve net savings of almost £1m a year by re- ducing outpatient attendances in the hospitals, follow-up appoint- ments and the number of steps in a patient’s pathway to health. GPs are reporting patients are pleased they do not have to attend hospital outpatient departments and with the speed of decisions about their care.


MAIDSTONE HOSPITAL  Overall: requires improvement. Maternity and gynaecology: good.  Urgent care, medical care, sur- gery, children’s care, end-of-life care and outpatient services: require improvement.  Critical care: inadequate.


tened to our inspectors’ findings and begun to take action where it is re- quired. We will return in due course to check that the improvements we have identified have been made.” Inspectors noted both hospitals


were visibly clean with falling infec- tion rates, and patients felt they had been given sufficient information to make informed decisions about their treatment. However, they found that patient flow across the trust was poor. Pa- tients deemed fit to be discharged from intensive care frequently expe- rienced delays in being transferred to a ward and scheduled operations


TUNBRIDGE WELLS HOSPITAL  Overall: requires improvement.  All core services: require improvement, apart from critical care, which was rated inadequate.


were cancelled due to a lack of avail- able beds. While levels of nursing staff were generally good, medical cover in the intensive care unit was not consis- tent with national standards and cre- ated a risk to patients. There were also not enough single rooms at Maidstone Hospital, which had an impact on patient privacy and the dignity of patients, particularly those on an end-of-life pathway. Inspectors have told the trust it must ensure adequate consultant cover at weekends in the intensive care unit (ICU) in Tunbridge Wells Hospital and people should not be


delayed for more than four hours when a decision has been taken to admit them or to discharge them. As far as possible, patients should not be discharged at night. At Maidstone Hospital, the trust must ensure that sufficient ward rounds take place in the ICU, that people are admitted or discharged within four hours, and that patients are not moved to other wards at night. The governance structure in the unit must be improved to sup- port better multi-disciplinary work- ing by clinical staff.


Glenn Douglas, chief executive of the trust, pointed out that outstand- ing practice noted by the CQC in- cluded the Maidstone Birth Centre, maternity services at Tunbridge Wells, work on dementia care and the trust’s breast care service. He added: “We are disappointed not to be rated good on this occasion and have taken immediate steps to ad- dress the actions within this report. “We welcome the CQC’s recom- mendations and are driving through improvements for our patients.”


GP support increased for care home patients


By Dennis Fowle


A PLAN to extend GP practice support for nursing and residen- tial care homes in Maidstone and West Kent has been approved by the NHS West Kent Clinical Com- missioning Group.


A pilot scheme will focus on 20 homes with comparatively high levels of emergency acute activity. The aims are to:


 reduce unplanned, avoidable hospital admissions for care home residents;  increase the number of care


MAIDSTONE and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has joined forces with Macmillan Cancer Support to fund a new Macmillan nurse clinician role for metastatic (sec- ondary) breast cancer.


Claire Ryan, who has taken up


home residents dying in their pre- ferred place of death;  increase advanced care plans de- tailing preferred place of death, a client’s consent to “do not resusci- tate”, and anticipatory plans for emergency management;  support and proactively manage clients through “improved inte- grated working of providers using a multi-disciplinary approach”. Residents considered at high risk of unplanned hospital admissions will have access to “appropriate and consistent proactive care be-


the post, previously worked for the Trust as lead oncology research nurse at Kent Oncology Centre, during which time she was respon- sible for developing a clinical trial portfolio researching breast cancer. Claire will offer advice, informa- tion and support to people with metastatic breast cancer, ie cancer that has spread from the breast to other parts of the body.


tween the hours of 8am and 6pm seven days a week, with access to alternative services outside these hours”. The intention is to prevent crisis episodes which lead to hospi- tal attendances.


The system should also lead to faster repatriation of patients from hospital to care homes. The com- missioning group agreed a pay- ment system for the support provided by GP practices.  There are 101 residential homes and 35 nursing homes in West Kent with a total of 3,608 beds.


Advice for breast cancer sufferers Cancer concern


A REPORT on “potential years of life lost” has shown West Kent has started to fall behind other Kent areas with regard to cancer care. However, it is ahead on other health problems including stroke and respiratory diseases. The West Kent Commissioning Group agreed a “deep dive” in- vestigation in to the cancer fig- ures.


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More local news, community events and information at www.downsmail.co.uk Maidstone Town March 2015


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