Tameside General Hospital told improvements are needed to its maternity services
Tameside General Hospital's maternity services have been told it needs to improve waiting times, especially in the antenatal clinic and the triage phone line.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out an inspection in December 2023, as part of a national programme and rated maternity services at Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust as "requires improvement".
Inspectors looked at the areas of safe and well-led in the maternity services at Tameside General Hospital.
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
Some areas of the maternity unit weren’t clean and not all staff had completed infection prevention and control training.
Staff didn’t always keep good care records, nor were they stored securely.
Processes to check emergency equipment weren’t always effective and there were out of date and missing items on emergency trolleys.
Not all relevant staff had completed level three adult safeguarding training.
Staff didn’t always follow systems and processes to prescribe, store and administer medicines safely.
The CQC did say the service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them, and said:
Staff were proud to work for the service and mostly felt respected, supported, and valued.
Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent.
CQC didn’t look at how effective, caring, and responsive the service was at this inspection, therefore the ratings for these areas remain as good.
The overall rating for the trust, as well as Tameside General Hospital, remains as good.
Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said:
“When we inspected maternity services at Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, we found staff who were skilled and were focused on the needs of women, people using the service and their babies.
"However, there was a deterioration in the standard of care being provided since we last inspected and leaders must now focus on making the necessary improvements.
"We were concerned that despite leaders monitoring waiting times, they didn’t always ensure people were seen in a timely manner and there were delays in people receiving treatment once they had been initially assessed.
"Staff told us people may face long waits for a medical review, especially those from antenatal clinic waiting for a scan review in the assessment unit.
"We also found that the dedicated triage telephone line wasn’t always answered by a trained member of staff which could place people at risk if their concern was dealt with by someone who didn’t have the right knowledge or skill.
"We will continue to monitor the trust, including through future inspections, to ensure the necessary improvements are made so people can receive safe and appropriate care."
Tameside and Glossop Intergrated Care NHS Trust says it is working to improve the isssues highlighted by the report and said in a statement:
"Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust accepts the CQC’s findings following the latest inspection of our maternity services.
"Their report identified our service’s willingness to learn and found staff were proud to work for the service.
"Our dedicated maternity leadership team are now working through a robust plan to address the areas for improvement identified by the CQC in order to provide the highest quality of service for our community."