Ann Barnes, Chief Executive of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stepping Hill Hospital and community health services in Stockport, said, "We are upset and disappointed that we have not been getting it right for every patient, and we apologise to the individual patients and their families where the reports show we were failing to provide the best care.
"We have committed and skilled staff who, despite facing many pressures, come to work every day wanting to provide the absolute best for each patient. They care deeply about what they do and this is reflected in the `good` rating we received for having `caring` services.
"We launched a major safety and improvement plan several months ago. A huge amount of work has taken place, with both short, medium and long-term measures being implemented.
"These improvements include work around incident reporting, extra training for the care of diabetes patients and those with mental health issues, records management and stock checking.
"Significant work is taking place across our hospital and in the community to address the continuing challenges in our A&E department. This includes better management of patients coming in overnight and at weekends, and improving the flow of patients through the hospital with timely, safe discharge so that beds are available for seriously ill patients needing to be admitted.
"We will continue the momentum of improvement at pace, both now and in the future. This includes working with our health and social care partners on new ways of delivering care to build a system that works for patients. Nothing is more important to us than ensuring that they receive the highest quality care at all times."
Dr Colin Wasson, Medical Director said, "We are stretched and under pressure, but staff have been working incredibly hard to make improvements.
"Medical and nurse recruitment remains a challenge, as there is a national critical shortage in some areas, but our intense recruitment efforts continue locally, nationally and internationally.
"We are also developing a ward accreditation scheme with clinical staff and setting the high standards of care that we expect to see in our clinical areas.
"The impact of our efforts was recognised when Health Education England in the North West undertook a quality monitoring visit to our A&E department and medical care areas just over a week ago, to help inform the CQC.
"They found that we have made positive steps and concluded that ‘there was considerable improvement in morale, staffing levels and senior leadership in the emergency medicine department and systems in the acute care pathway’.
"The care of our patients will always be our top priority".
Anne Gibbs, NHS Improvement’s Delivery and Improvement Director in Greater Manchester and Lancashire, speaking as chair of the Trust Improvement Board said:
“We have been working very closely with Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, and its key stakeholders across Greater Manchester to address the issues raised by the CQC’s report to ensure the organisation has the support and expertise to manage the significant challenges it faces and continue to provide the best possible healthcare services to local people.
“An Improvement Board was convened shortly after the inspection, made up of representatives of local stakeholders, to work with the Trust to tackle the issues raised by the CQC in the most effective and efficient manner whilst ensuring patients continue to receive the highest quality of care.
“In addition, we have appointed an Improvement Director to work directly with the Trust. That individual brings a wealth of NHS experience to the role, working alongside challenged organisations that need to rapidly improve performance.
“Recent feedback to the Improvement Board has indicated that since the inspection took place, Stockport has worked hard to improve the culture and leadership in the acute care pathway, across the whole system. There is evidence of multi-professional workforce solutions, with new ways of working and new models of care, freeing up senior medical staff to provide clinical leadership and supervision for trainees.”
You can read the CQC reports in full below.
