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Appalling indictment of leadership
I FEEL no surprise that the Care Quality Commission – the body responsible for regulating health and social care in England – has published a damning report into cleanliness, or a lack of it, at East Surrey Hospital.
The CQC conducted an unannounced inspection of the hospital on January 28. They concluded that the duty to protect patients and staff from healthcare-associated infections had been breached.
The actual findings point to a more basic conclusion – the hospital is, as we know, filthy.
The full report can be viewed on the CQC website (www.cqc.org.uk) but a few examples include blood-stained mattresses and cubicle curtains; needles found under mattresses and commodes, mattresses and chairs prepared for new patients being found to be 'soiled'. Unsurprising when they also concluded that staff were unclear about who had responsibility for cleaning – including for spillages of bodily fluids.
The inspection took place on January 28 - just 24 hours before I met the hospital's chief executive and new chairman and was reassured, for the umpteenth time, that the hospital was improving and patients were happy.
The management seemed to really believe what they were saying and my examples of local people experiencing a lack of care and hygiene were treated as anomalies.
Yet the report evidenced serious failings: stinking wet mattresses, blood stains, dust and debris.
So what happened? Did the management know the truth about these horrors – and hide it from us?
Surely not. But how could they have been unaware of failings on this scale?
Either way, it's an appalling indictment of the hospital's leadership.
The management's response to the report was that this was a mere 'lapse' – as if everything had been absolutely fine until the inspection.
They claimed that problems were only found in two areas of the hospital. In fact only three areas were inspected and problems were found in each of them.
They also boasted that the hospital had passed 13 of the 16 measures the CQC uses. This totally distorts the truth. The 13 measures that were OK were tick-boxes to do with policy and process.
The two most worrying failures were to do with the hospital itself being clean – failed; and about equipment and instruments being decontaminated – also failed.
The Care Quality Commission has placed East Surrey under close scrutiny.
I will continue to monitor the situation on behalf of local people who have no choice but to use the hospital.
And – yes – I'll carry on campaigning for a new local hospital for NHS patients.
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Weather for Horsham
Thursday 09 February 2012
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