Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust 'should be placed into special measures'

The trust which runs health services in Walsall should be placed into special measures after it was rated as 'Inadequate overall', England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals has said.

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which provides acute hospital and community health services for around 260,000 people, was told by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that it needed to make "urgent improvements" to ensure it was consistently delivering safe and effective care.

The inspections, carried out in September, raised concerns about the trust's staffing, and found that care had fallen to below the standards patients should be able to expect in the emergency department and maternity wards as a result of heavy workloads.

The trust was also warned it 'requires Improvement' for being caring and responsive.

The inspection highlighted a number of concerns and areas where the trust must improve, including:

• Governance of incident reporting systems needed to improve to ensure processes were embedded across the trust;

• Adequate numbers of qualified staff needed to be made available across all services, particularly in maternity services and the emergency department;

• Equipment needed to be kept in good working order and fit for purpose across all services and be stored appropriately; keeping all fire exits free from obstruction;

• The patient administration system needed to be reviewed to minimise problems associated with missed patient appointments and its data needed to be accurate;

• The trust needed to ensure health records were completed appropriately and maintain patient confidentiality at all times.

The CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said:

The inspection looked at services at Walsall Manor Hospital, community end of life services, community services for children young people and families and community services for adults.