Hospital given CQC warning over surgery services

A hospital has been issued with a warning notice to improve its surgery services following an inspection from the health watchdog.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said "significant improvements" were needed to ensure people's safety at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham.

Following the visit, surgery services at the hospital remain rated as requiring improvement overall.

A Good Hope spokesperson said they were confident improvements made since the inspection had "significantly improved" areas of concern.

Good Hope, which is part of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, provides a range of emergency and elective surgery.

Following an unannounced inspection in June last year, in response to "information of concern", the department was assessed over whether it was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

The CQC judged its safety and responsiveness to require improvement, with the rating over whether it was well-led also downgraded to the second lowest level.

However, the review found the surgery service's effectiveness and care to be good.

The hospital spokesperson said: "Delivering safe and high-quality care, whilst supporting our colleagues to do their very best for our patients, remains our key focus."

Charlotte Rudge, CQC interim deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said the aim of the warning notice was to encourage improvements.

She said delays for people returning from theatres or operations being cancelled due to unavailable surgery beds needed to be urgently addressed.

"We also found the service didn't always manage safety incidents well, and didn't always learn lessons from them to stop them from happening again," she added.

In addition, inspectors found not all staff had received training on equipment used and there were not enough workers to keep patients safe.

However, the watchdog said processes were in place to ensure people were safeguarded from the risk of harm and abuse, and medicines were administered in line with policy.

"Despite these issues with how leaders were managing the service, we heard from people who told us staff cared for them in a kind and considerate way," Ms Rudge added.

A CQC spokesperson apologised for a delay in publishing the report, which it said was down to a "large-scale transformation programme" at the watchdog.

They added any immediate action the CQC needed to take to protect people using the hospital service was not affected by the delay.

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