CQC rate Macclesfield District General Hospital as 'requires improvements' after breach of regulations
Macclesfield District General Hospital has been given an overall grading of ‘requires improvements’ from the Care Quality Commission despite being rated as good in maternity, services for children and young people, critical care, end of life care, outpatients and surgery.
Certain departments of the hospital were inspected by the health watch dog last year and the findings were published on Friday, January 30 with medical care including older people’s services and urgent and emergency services receiving the requires improvement grade.
The report said: “At this assessment we identified breaches of regulations: nine Person-centred Care, 11 Need for consent, 12 Safe care and treatment, 16 Receiving and acting on complaints, 17 Good governance, 18 Staffing and 20 Duty of candour.
“We rated the location as Requires Improvement.”
Looking specifically at medical care including older people’s services the report said: “Key issues included poor management of safety risks, poor compliance and understanding of the Mental Capacity Act, low training compliance, delays in discharge and access to care.
“Governance was notably weak, with poor documentation control, outdated and inconsistent policies and lack of oversight of risks in the service.
“However, staff demonstrated kindness and compassion, patients felt respected and cared for, and there was a positive culture of learning from incidents.
“The service showed good practice in workforce wellbeing, diversity, and freedom to speak up, and had effective multi-disciplinary collaboration and community engagement.”
Over in urgent and emergency services the report noted key issues included staffing in the paediatric emergency department, the management of mental health patients and completion of mental health risk assessments were not ‘always robust’, staff did not ‘consistently follow best practices for infection prevention and control’ and complaint and duty of candour responses were not ‘always timely’.
The inspector said: “The service fostered a positive learning culture with thorough investigations and shared improvements.
“Care was person-centred, with patients involved in decisions and information provided in accessible formats.”
Speaking about the maternity department the CQC report said: “We found midwifery and medical staffing levels were a challenge to support workload, complete training and provide learning opportunities within the service.
“The service had made improvements since our last inspection to, processes, audit and equipment checks.
“Staff demonstrated kindness, compassion and patients felt respected and cared for. The service showed good practice in workforce well-being and freedom to speak up.”
A spokesperson for the East Cheshire NHS trust Services, which operates Macclesfield District General, said: “The Trust welcomes the findings from the CQC, which will play a valuable part in helping us to make improvements to the services we provide to our local population. “We are pleased to see that our Maternity Services retained their rating of ‘Good’.
“We recognise that there is further work to be done to improve both our Medical and Urgent and Emergency Services, which have both been rated as ‘requires improvement’.
“However, the CQC described staff as “...kind and compassionate staff working hard in medical and urgent and emergency services.”
“We remain fully committed to delivering the highest standards of quality care and with continued dedication from all of us, the involvement of patients, families and carers.”