All inspections: William Harvey Hospital

East Kent University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (EKUFT) is 1 of the largest hospital trusts in England, with 5 hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 695,000 people. The trust provides local services primarily for the people living in Kent.

The William Harvey Hospital (WHH) is 1 of 5 hospitals that form part of EKUFT and has another acute hospital with inpatient maternity services called the Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital. Approximately 3,600 babies are born every year at WHH.

We inspected maternity services at WHH to determine if they had made improvements since our last inspection in January 2023. We found that the trust had made significant improvements and were no longer in breach of any legal regulations. However, the estate and environment did not effectively meet the needs of women and families, and did not follow national guidance. Leaders had done their best to improve the environment but were limited in what they could achieve. The estate was built in 1977 and needed significant funding to ensure it was fit for purpose, and families received care in a suitable environment that protected their psychological safety.

The overall capacity did not adequately support the activity. The geography and limitations meant it was not always possible for staff to support care that was compassionate and dignified. Restricted space and facilities (particularly in labour/birth rooms) compromised women’s experience and dignity and meant staff were often working within conditions that created additional pressure.

We refer to women in this report, but we recognise that some transgender men, non-binary women and women with variations in sex characteristics or who are intersex may also use services and experience some of the same issues

The William Harvey Hospital is operated by East Kent Foundation NHS Trust. The maternity service sits within the maternity and women’s directorate and provides a range of services from pregnancy, birth and postnatal care. Out- patient services include an early pregnancy unit, antenatal clinics, and a fetal medicine unit. In-patient services include antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal beds. The bereavement suite was in the process of being refurbished and moved to a private location

There is a mixed antenatal and postnatal ward and a triage service which is accessible 24 hours-a-day. The midwifery-led unit includes 8 labour/birth rooms which includes 1 pool room. The labour ward has 10 labour/birth rooms which include 4 induction of labour rooms. One of the rooms include a pool for labour and/or birth. There is a dedicated obstetric theatre and recovery room with 2 beds.

The neonatal intensive care unit is close to the labour ward to support quick access when babies needed to transfer.

Community maternity services are provided by teams of midwives predominantly commissioned by NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board.

Medical care (including older people's care)

Our rating of this location stayed the same. We rated it as requires improvement because:

The service did not ensure staff at all levels completed the necessary mandatory and statutory training to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform.
The service did not always have enough staff to care for patients. Staff did not always make sure equipment, such as resuscitation trolleys, were accurately checked and safe to use.
The service did not ensure systems and processes to mitigate risk including fire safety, infection prevention and control and patients’ privacy and dignity; relating to the environment, premises, and equipment, were safe.
The service did not ensure systems and processes to monitor cleanliness of the environment and equipment were sufficient to reduce infection prevention and control risk and staff did not always follow the infection prevention and control policy. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service but did not always ensure staff were competent.
Staff did not always complete patient risk assessments on admission to medical wards. Managers did not always feed back incident outcomes to staff and staff did not always report near misses or potential harms.
The service did not always ensure they communicated effectively with patients when making decisions about patient care.
The service did not always ensure chemicals that are hazardous to health were stored safely and securely. The service did not always keep patient records secure.
Not all leaders ran services well and information systems were not reliable and did not always support staff to develop their skills.

However:

Staff understood how to protect patients from abuse. Staff acted on risks to patients and kept good care records.
Staff provided good care and treatment, gave patients enough to eat and drink, and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Most key services were available seven days a week.
Staff mostly treated patients with compassion and kindness, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families, and carers.
The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it.
Staff were involved in developing the service’s vision and values. Most staff felt respected, supported, and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to continually improving services.

Services for children and young people

Our rating of this location went down. We rated it as requires improvement because:

Staff had varied compliance with training in key skills. Medicines were not always managed well. Safeguarding training was below the trust targets for medical staff. Agency staff did not consistently have an induction.
Managers did not ensure staff were competent in key skills and did not fully monitor the effectiveness of the service. Staff did not always receive appraisals and clinical supervision was not available for nursing staff. Key services were not available and there was no plan to address this at the time of inspection.
The service did not always consider the individual needs of children and young people receiving treatment and care.
Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems but did not support staff to develop their skills. Leaders did not always recognise and escalate concerns within the department.

However:

The service had enough staff to care for children and young people and keep them safe. The service understood how to protect children and young people from avoidable harm, and managed safety well. The service managed infection risks well. Staff assessed risks to children and young people, acted on them and kept good care records. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.
Staff gave children and young people enough to eat and drink and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Staff worked well together for the benefit of children and young people and supported them to make decisions about their care. They had access to information to help them provide treatment and care safely.
Staff treated children and young people with compassion and kindness. They respected their privacy and dignity and helped them understand their conditions. Staff provided emotional support to children and young people, families and carers.
The service made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment.
Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of children and young people receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with children, young people and the community to plan and manage services.

Urgent and emergency services

Our rating of this location stayed the same. We rated it as requires improvement because:

Safeguarding training was below trust targets for medical staff. Managers did not ensure staff were competent in key skills and did not fully monitor the effectiveness of the service. Staff did not always receive appraisals and there was limited clinical supervision was in place for nursing staff.
The service did not have enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them however they did not always re-assess patients or maintain good care records. Staff did not always report incidents or near misses in line with trust policy.
Overcrowded departments meant patients privacy and dignity could not always be respected.
Leaders of the service described a disconnect between the emergency department and services within the hospital. They described a lack of trust-wide ownership of the challenges faced by the emergency department.
The lack of patient flow into and out of the emergency department, and into the hospital, had a significant impact on both staff and patients.

However:

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals within the emergency department worked together as a team to benefit patients.
The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. The service promoted equality and diversity in daily work.

Our rating of this location stayed the same.

We inspected maternity services. We rated it as inadequate because:

The service did not always control infection risk well. Staff did not always use control measures to protect women, and other pregnant people, themselves and others from infection. Equipment and the premises were not always visibly clean. The design, maintenance and use of facilities, premises and equipment did not always keep people safe.
Staff did not always check emergency equipment in line with policy to ensure this was ready, safe and fit for purpose.
The labour suites were not equipped with resuscitaires which impacted on timely access for babies requiring emergency care. Staff did not always ensure a second opinion was sought; a process called the ‘fresh eyes’.
Services were not effectively planned to meet the needs of women. The midwife led unit was not available to women and birthing women did not have access to the birthing pool.
The service did not always have enough staff to care for women and babies and keep them safe. Assessments and records of care were inconsistent and posed risks of important information not being recorded and acted upon.
There was a lack of learning from incidents. The incidents investigation backlog impacted on risk management. Action plans could not always be translated to learning as they were not embedded, therefore there was a risk of recurrence of incidents. There was a backlog of incidents which had not been reviewed, investigated and action plans had not been developed to mitigate risks of recurrence.
Care and treatment did not always reflect current evidence-based guidance, standards, best practice and technologies. Managers did not always monitor the effectiveness of the service in a timely way. Outcomes for women were not always positive, consistent or met expectations, such as national standards. Milk for babies was not always stored securely.
The service was not planned or providing care in a way that met the needs of all local people and the communities it served. Services were not always accessible to women. There were delays to discharges and these were not monitored. The triage and day care facilities were poor, and women were cared for in a chaotic environment. Women were not always cared for in appropriate environments due to challenges in managing flow across the maternity unit.

Leaders did not always understand and manage the priorities and issues the service faced. Staff did not always understand the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Not all staff felt there were regular opportunities to meet to discuss risk and governance. Staff did not always know how to speak up if they had concerns. The service’s information systems did not provide sufficient coverage of both quality and sustainability. The service did not have standardised quality improvement methods to drive improvement.

However:

The breastfeeding support team provided a good service. They were responsive and supportive, and available seven days a week, providing services in the unit and at home.
Staff had training in safeguarding women and babies and understood how to protect women from abuse and took appropriate actions.
The bereavement service supported women and their families appropriately and sensitively.
Staff were responsive and worked hard, with limited resources, to meet the needs of women and their families.
Staff assessed and provided good support for women with mental health needs, including timely referrals to mental health teams.
Staff worked well together in their immediate teams for the benefit of women, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information.
Key services were available seven days a week.
Staff treated women with compassion and kindness.
The service took account of women’s needs and made it easy for people to give feedback. The service engaged well with women receiving care as inpatients and in the community and used feedback to improve services.

We carried out this unannounced focused inspection because at our last inspection we rated the service overall as inadequate and we received information giving us concerns about the safety and quality of the services. We focused our inspection on the key questions that were rate inadequate at our last inspection. We also looked at those parts of the service that did not meet legal requirements at the time of the last inspection.

The William Harvey Hospital provides; medical care (including older people’s care), services for children and young people, critical care, end of life care, outpatients and diagnostic imaging, surgery, and urgent and emergency services.

We did not rerate the hospital at this inspection. The previous rating of requires improvement remains. See the children and young people section for what we found.

During the inspection, we visited Padua ward, the neonatal intensive care unit, theatres, recovery, radiology, fracture clinic, the rotary suite, and the children’s outpatient department at the William Harvey Hospital. We spoke with five parents, two children and 29 staff including; nurses, doctors, managers, allied health professionals and support staff. During our inspection, we looked at six sets of patient records.

How we carried out the inspection

You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.

We carried out an unannounced focused inspection of the maternity services at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust because we received information giving us concerns about the safety and quality of maternity services.

We visited the maternity units at the William Harvey Hospital on the 21 July 2021. We visited the community midwifery services at Kent and Canterbury Hospital on the 22 July 2021.

As this was a focused inspection, we only inspected three of the key questions in maternity services (safe, effective and well led).  

Focused inspections can result in an updated rating for any key questions that were inspected if we have inspected the key question in full across the service and/or we have identified a breach of regulation and issued a requirement notice, or taken action under our enforcement powers. In these cases, the ratings will be limited to requires improvement or inadequate.

We inspected maternity care throughout the unit so we could get to the heart of the patient experience. We needed to understand the patient journey and make sure that women and babies were safe from harm; and that leaders supported staff with their training and decision making.

See the maternity section for what we found.

How we carried out the inspection

One CQC inspector led the inspection supported by an experienced obstetric specialist advisor and a midwifery specialist advisor.

During the inspection, we visited five key areas of the maternity unit; the delivery suite, antenatal triage, maternity day care the antenatal/postnatal Folkestone ward and the community midwifery teams in Canterbury.

We spoke with over 25 staff including executive staff, service leads, midwives, medical staff and maternity support workers, consultants, registrars, junior doctors and student midwives.

Our inspection was unannounced (staff did not know we were coming) to enable us to observe routine activities. We carried out a focused inspection related to the concerns raised, which focused on three domains of our key lines of enquiry (KLOEs) safe, effective and well led. As a result of this inspection ratings for this service remain unchanged. The rating stayed as requires improvement.

You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.

We carried out this unannounced, focused inspection because at our last inspection of medical care (including older people’s care) at William Harvey Hospital we rated the key question of “Is the service safe?” as inadequate. See the medical care (including older people’s care) section of our previous report for our findings and judgements. We had also received information giving us concerns about the safety and quality of the services. The William Harvey Hospital provides; medical care (including older people’s care), services for children and young people, critical care, end of life care, outpatients and diagnostic imaging, surgery, and urgent and emergency services. We inspected the key question “Is the service safe?” within the core service of medical care (including older people’s care). We did not rerate the hospital at this inspection. The previous rating of requires improvement remains. See the medical care (including older people’s care) section in this report for what we found on this inspection. During the inspection, we visited; the acute medical assessment unit, Cambridge M1 ward, Cambridge M2 ward, Cambridge L ward, Cambridge J2 wards and the discharge lounge at the William Harvey Hospital. We spoke with 31 staff including; nurses, doctors, managers, allied health professionals and support staff. During our inspection, we looked at ten sets of patient records. How we carried out the inspection You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.

We carried out an unannounced focused inspection of the emergency department at William Harvey Hospital following the ‘Resilience 5 Plus’ process. The ‘Resilience 5 Plus’ process is used to support focused inspections of urgent and emergency care services which may be under pressure due to winter demands or concerns in relation to patient flow and COVID-19.

We did not inspect any other services as this was a focused inspection in relation to urgent and emergency care. We did not enter any areas designated as high risk due to COVID-19. The inspection framework focused on five key lines of enquiry relating to critical care, infection prevention and control, patient flow, workforce and leadership and culture.

We previously inspected the emergency department at William Harvey Hospital in March 2020 as part of our comprehensive inspection methodology. We rated it as requires improvement overall and imposed conditions relating to the emergency department. The conditions were monitored prior to, and separately from, this inspection. The conditions were removed on 29 March 2021 following improvements made by the trust. Therefore, the rating limiter due to the level of enforcement action which restricted the rating to inadequate in the key question of safe no longer applies and it has improved to a rating of requires improvement.

How we carried out the inspection

We spoke with 28 staff across a range of disciplines including lead nurses, senior nurses, healthcare assistants, emergency department consultants, trust grade doctors, junior doctors, matrons, ambulance crews, the care group head of nursing, and the care group clinical director. We attended emergency department safety huddles and a patient flow meeting.

As part of the inspection, we observed care and treatment and looked at six care records. We analysed information about the service which was provided by the trust.

You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.

William Harvey Hospital is operated by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. The trust became an NHS foundation trust in 2009. It has five hospitals serving the local population of around 695,000 people across Dover, Canterbury, Thanet, Shepway and Ashford.

The trust has 1,111 inpatient beds across 54 wards. This includes 31 critical care beds, 48 children's beds and 49 day-case beds. Each year the trust receives over 200,000 emergency attendances, 158,000 inpatient spells and one million outpatient attendances. Both William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (QEQM) Hospital in Margate provide all core services while Kent and Canterbury Hospital in Canterbury does not have maternity beds and has a minor injuries unit with an emergency care centre rather than a full emergency department.

NHS Improvement (NHSI) put the trust in financial special measures in March 2017 because it was forecast to be in significant financial deficit and was not meeting its control total (the trust’s year-end target against its budget). The trust was still in financial special measures at the time of the inspection.

We inspected urgent and emergency care services at William Harvey Hospital using our focused inspection methodology. However, we inspected all areas that we would inspect on a comprehensive inspection. We carried out an announced inspection on 3 and 4 March 2020.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Services we rate

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as Requires improvement overall because:

The service did not always have enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff did not always manage safety well. The service did not always control infection risk well. Staff did not always assess risks to patients, act on them, or keep good care records. They did not always manage medicines well. The service did not always manage safety incidents well or learn lessons from them.
Staff did not always follow department policy. The service did not always provide patients with pain relief when they needed it. Managers did not always monitor the effectiveness of the service.
The service did not always plan care to meet the needs of local people or take account of patients’ individual needs. They did not always make it easy for people to give feedback. People could not always access the service when they needed it and did sometimes have to wait too long for treatment.
Staff did not understand the service’s vision. Some staff were not clear about their role or accountabilities. Some staff were committed to continual improvement of services.

However:
The service had made improvement to the paediatric emergency department services since our last inspection.
Most staff had the training in key skills. Staff understood how to protect patients from abuse.
Most staff provided evidenced based care and treatment and gave patients enough to eat and drink. Managers made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Key services were available seven days a week.
Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers.
Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should take action either because it was not doing something required by a regulation, but it would be disproportionate to find a breach of the regulation overall, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with two requirement notices that affected urgent and emergency services. These requirement notices tell the trust to produce a plan, within 28 days, for how it will comply with regulation 12 (safe care and treatment) and regulation 17 (good governance). Details are at the end of the report.

William Harvey Hospital is operated by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. The trust has 50 maternity beds across two sites. William Harvey Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent. A total of 6,428 babies were born across the t rust during the last year.

The trust is accountable to East Kent Clinical Commissioning Group. Maternity services are provided to a large rural population with small pockets of severe deprivation and has a population that has increased by 21,000 in 2019 due to multiple housing developments across Kent. Since our last report in 2018 maternity services have seen an increasing number of women presenting for pregnancy with complex health needs, who require higher levels of intervention.

The William Harvey maternity unit is run by the Women and Childrens Care Group which provides maternity services across a large area of East Kent. We inspected maternity services at William Harvey Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital. This report presents our findings for our inspection of William Harvey Hospital.

At the time of our inspection, the trust were reviewing maternity and neonatal services after concerns were raised by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This was due to a series of historic failures in the care of women and their babies. The last CQC inspection was carried out in August 2018 and rated maternity as requires improvement overall.

Maternity services at William Harvey Hospital include 10 consultant-led labour rooms and eight low risk labour rooms on the Singleton midwifery unit including two rooms with installed birthing pools. There are 28 beds on the Folkestone maternity ward which provides care for antenatal and postnatal admissions. Other maternity services include a fetal medicine unit, a twice weekly consultant led antenatal clinic, a two-bedded day care unit with to additional chair spaces, and a purpose-built bereavement suite. Six community midwifery teams operate across East Kent providing antenatal and postnatal care and a homebirth service. William Harvey Hospital is one of two hospitals in Kent to offer a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit.

Antenatal satellite clinics are available at Kent and Canterbury Hospital in Canterbury, Buckland Hospital in Dover and the Royal Victoria in Folkestone. We did not inspect these clinics as part of this inspection.

There were 3,796 babies born at William Harvey Hospital during the reporting period of January 2019 to January 2020. The trust reported that 178 women opted to have their babies at home.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the unannounced part of the inspection on 22 and 23 January 2020, along with an announced visit to the hospital on the 4th and 5th February 2020.

To get to the heart of women’s’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Services we rate

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as Requires improvement overall.

The trust had not achieved compliance with all 10 actions of their safety action plan during the reporting period and two actions remained outstanding.
On maternity day care, standard operating procedures were not embedded. Risk assessing women was not robust and correct care pathways were not always identified quickly, to provide the necessary care and treatment. We highlighted these concerns to the trust, and the care group implemented changes and informed staff.
Maternity day care admissions and wait times had not been routinely monitored prior to our inspection, which meant staffing did not always meet the needs of the service.
Leaders used systems to manage performance, however, these were not always effective in all areas of the service. Leaders had not always identified and escalated relevant risks or identified actions to reduce their impact.
Safeguarding training rates for doctors did not meet the trust target of 85%, only 75% of doctors completed it.
The service did not always manage infection control well; we found urine specimens unattended in antenatal clinic and day care. Cleaning checks were out of date on some equipment. The trust had two recent cases of Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus during the reporting period.
We had concerns about the placement of newborn resuscitaires. The Womens and Childrens care group leads added this to the internal risk register as a tolerated risk which will continue to be monitored.
Staff in day care did not routinely report all incidents, which meant managers were not always aware of all avoidable events on the unit.
The service did not always complete incident reviews according to national time frames and their maternity transformation program.
Antenatal patient records were not always clear, or in chronological order because 50% of records were stored digitally and 50% were hand written. Doctors and midwives used different methods of documentation in women’s patient care records. This had also been highlighted in a recent coroner’s report.
On-call consultant and medical cover for maternity and gynaecology was limited. The care group leadership recognised the risk, and at the time of the inspection were taking steps to mitigate this.
There were times when junior midwives worked alone in day care who did not have the necessary experience, knowledge and skills to escalate complex emergency situations. After our inspection the trust told us that they were reviewing rosters to ensure there was always an experienced midwife on every shift and staff could contact a senior midwifery co-ordinator to escalate concerns.
Antenatal early warning scores were not being calculated to see whether care and treatment needed to be escalated.
Pregnant women accessed the waiting area via the main outpatients waiting area where people with long term health conditions waited for appointments. This meant that they may be exposed to health conditions acquired by the non-pregnant population.
Maternity services did not provide a specialist women-centred, consultant-led perinatal mental health service designed to provide continuity and time for women with mental health conditions in-line with national guidelines.
The trust’s maternity statistics dashboard confirmed the trusts postpartum haemorrhage rate was 5% which is higher than the current national average of 2.7%.
Midwives caring for women during routine caesarean section did not have sufficient time to support mothers with skin to skin and infant feeding in the first hour after birth, which is vital to stabilise babies’ blood sugars and temperature.
Breastfeeding initiation rates were consistently low and rarely met the national average of 82%.

However:

The service had enough midwives to care for women and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, and understood how to protect women and babies from harm. Since our last inspection, the service had made improvements to make sure women received one-to-one care during childbirth
The service had a vision for what it wanted to achieve and a strategy to turn it into action, developed with all relevant stakeholders. Since our last inspection leaders had worked to make improvements to its maternity service. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work.
All staff were committed to continually learning and improving services. The service had a Faculty of Multi Professional Learning, which delivered evidence based safe training for all staff. Fetal monitoring training and care had improved in line with best practice.
Since our last inspection, the trust had developed a robust system to measure, monitor and analyse common causes of harm to women during pregnancy and childbirth.
Leaders were working to improve facilities and services across maternity, the trust had invested in new equipment and drawn plans to transform the day care unit into a full maternity triage service.
Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals worked together as a team to benefit women. They supported each other to provide good care.
Staff could give examples of how to protect women from harassment and discrimination, including those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act.
Staff shared key information to keep women safe when handing over their care to others.
Since our last inspection, the trust increased its percentage of women receiving continuity of carer.
During childbirth, staff completed risk assessments for each woman on admission and updated them when necessary using recognised tools.
The trust created a digital pregnancy MOMA application, where women could access health promotion advice.
Staff followed systems and processes when prescribing, administering, recording and storing medicines.
The service was inclusive and took account of women’s individual needs and preferences. Staff made reasonable adjustments to help women access services. They coordinated care with other services and providers.
Staff monitored the effectiveness of care and treatment. They used the findings to make improvements and achieved good outcomes for women in most areas. Maternity staff reduced the 3rd and 4th degree tear rate by 13% using best practice. The Singleton midwifery led unit provided excellent care, with a low transfer rate to the obstetric unit. The unit’s neonatal death rate had been reduced and was in line with the national average.
Staff treated women with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their individual needs. The unit’s friends and family score for care overall reported that 97% of women who responded to the survey were happy with their care.
Most staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of women receiving care. The service promoted equality and diversity in daily work, and provided opportunities for career development. The service had an open culture where women, their families and staff could raise concerns without fear.
The service engaged well with staff, women and the community to monitor, plan and manage services.
Leaders had recently improved the governance processes throughout the service with support from partner organisations. However, the new governance processes were not yet fully embedded.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with a requirement notice for breaches of regulation/s. Further details are at the end of the report.

We inspected services for children and young people at the William Harvey Hospital on 24 and 25 October 2018. The inspection visit on 24 October was unannounced and began at approximately 8.30pm.

This responsive inspection was undertaken because we had received concerning information from members of the public and staff about the Emergency department and children’s inpatient wards. We had also identified concerns about the care of children during our May 2018 inspection when we inspected the emergency department and operating theatres but did not review services for children and young people as a separate core service.

As part of this inspection, we reviewed the care and treatment of children and young people from birth to 18 years in the two acute hospital sites with children’s inpatient units. Some outpatient services for children are provided at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital site and from Buckland Hospital in Dover, but there are no inpatient services there. We did not inspect clinics or community services as the inspection was focused on the areas of concern.

We rated the children and young people’s services at William Harvey Hospital as Inadequate overall. We fed back our immediate concerns to the chief executive officer, the director of nursing and quality, the medical director and the quality improvement programme lead.

The services for children and young people were not safe.

Staff do not recognise concerns, incidents or near misses. When concerns were raised or things went wrong, the approach to reviewing and investigating causes was insufficient or too slow. There was little evidence of learning from events or action taken to improve safety.
Frequent staff shortages increased risks to children and young people who used the services.
There were inconsistent infection, prevention and control practice.
Medical records were not stored securely.
There was poor oversight of medicines management.
Staff did not have assurance all equipment was clean, fit for purpose and ready for patient use.
Staff did not assess, monitor or manage risks to people who use the services. Opportunities to prevent or minimise harm were missed.

The services for children and young people were not effective.

Clinical audits were not being completed within the scheduled timeframes which meant there were no current performance indicators for the trust against national standards.
There was confusion amongst staff on how to access policies and guidelines.
There were gaps in the seven-day service provision that meant children had to be treated in adult environments by adult staff.
The compliance rates for appraisals were worse than the trust target.
Staff had limited training in the management of children with mental health needs.
Ward rounds were not multidisciplinary which was a missed opportunity to plan and co-ordinate patient care and treatment.
Fasting times before surgery did not follow current best practice and put the needs of the service before the needs of the children.
There was no recognition of the psychological needs of children and young people in the operating theatre environment.
Pain thresholds were not assessed in a timely manner.

Improvements were needed in the care and compassion shown to children and families.

People were not always treated with kindness or respect.
Staff did not see people’s privacy and dignity as a priority.
There was an inadequate psychology service for children with diabetes.
There was poor provision of paediatric mental health advice and assessment.

The services for children and young people were not responsive.

Minimal effort was made to understand the needs of the local population. The services were planned and delivered without consideration of people’s needs.
The provision of service to meet the needs of children with mental health or learning disabilities was insufficient.
The facilities and premises used do not meet people’s needs.
Children and their families were frequently and consistently unable to access services in a timely way for an initial assessment, diagnosis or treatment. They experienced unacceptable waits for some services.
Staff did not understand the pathway for children within the emergency department.
There was little evidence to show concerns and complaints led to improvements in the quality of care.
Lack of children services 24 hours a day led to children being cared for in adult designated areas within the emergency department.

The services for children and young people were not well led.

The services did not have a clear vision or strategy.
Continuous improvement, and learning from when things go wrong was not evident across all areas.
Governance and risk management processes were ineffective and provided false assurance to the board.
Significant issues that threaten the delivery of safe and effective care were not identified or adequate action to manage them was not always taken.
There was little evidence of innovation or service development. There was minimal evidence of learning and reflective practice and the impact of service changes on the quality of care is not understood.
The NHS Staff Survey results for 2017 showed that overall the trust was in the worst 20% of trusts nationally for staff engagement. The results had worsened for many key findings since 2016.

We saw several areas of good practice including:

Staff interacted well with babies and used different methods of distraction to keep them calm.
Children and young people services did consistently well in the friends and family test.
Staff had a clear understanding of their safeguarding role and responsibilities and there was an effective system to provide prompt child protection medicals when needed.
The trust had a flagging system for children with learning disabilities so patients arriving in accident and emergency departments would be identifiable.
Staff had a sound understanding of the need for informed consent to be obtained before providing care or treatment.
There was good teamwork amongst staff and staff strived to support their peers.

However, there were also areas of poor practice where the trust needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the trust must:

Provide suitable accommodation for children and young people with mental health problems.
Review their booking and triage processes to ensure all staff are clear about the pathway children take through the emergency department and to minimise the time before they are assessed by a qualified children’s nurse.
Ensure that equipment checks required by trust policies are carried-out.
Ensure the safe management of medicines.
Ensure that clinicians are aware and follow trust policy and national guidance on the safe management of deteriorating children, sepsis identification and management.
Ensure that children wait in the children’s waiting area at all times. They must not be exposed to volatile behaviour, inappropriate television programmes and unpleasant sights and sounds in the adult waiting area.
Review the care of children aged 16 years to 19 years and ensure that their needs are fully considered.
Ensure submission of data to national audit programmes to allow benchmarking against other children’s services and to drive improvements.
Ensure that they adhere to a local audit plan and use the results to drive service improvements.
Carry out a learning needs analysis for nursing staff working with children and young people to assist in identifying what training is necessary and where there are gaps in staff skills and knowledge.
Ensure that staff are provided with the necessary training and support to ensure they can carry out their work competently.
Ensure compliance with the Health and Social Care Act 2008: code of practice on the prevention and control of infections. To include ensuring there are appropriate isolation facilities in the children’s emergency department for children with communicable diseases.
Review their policy and usual practice on pre-operative fasting for children to ensure it is aligned to national guidance.
Ensure that up to date policies and protocols are available to staff.
Ensure that the needs of children and young people presenting in mental health crisis are considered and met.
Ensure the views of children and young people are taken into consideration to aid service provision and make sure the care and treatment meets their needs and reflects their preferences.
Ensure that there are no breaches of the four-hour admission to treatment target for children attending the emergency department.
Develop a clear vision for children’s services that is recognised and shared by all staff caring for children and young people.
Ensure that data and information provided to the board is an accurate reflection of the services being provided to avoid the risk of false assurance.
Undertake an assurance review of their children’s service to identify gaps in their assurance and governance processes.
Ensure that there is clear, accountable leadership of services for all children from birth to 18 years (and beyond 18 years for looked after children and children in need).

In addition, the trust should:

Provide staff with training in the care of children and young people with autism and learning disabilities.
Ensure that the pathway for providing care when a child dies is known and understood by all staff likely to be affected.
Provide all staff including senior leaders with training in equality and diversity.
Consider providing customer service training for reception staff in the emergency department.

Professor Edward Baker

Inspector of Hospitals

Our rating of services stayed the same. We rated it them as requires improvement because:

We rated safe, effective, responsive and well-led as requires improvement, and caring as good. We rated three of four core services as requires improvement and one as good.

The William Harvey Hospital (WHH) in Ashford, Kent is one of five hospitals that form part of East Kent University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (EKUFT).

The William Harvey Hospital (WHH) is an acute 476 bedded hospital providing a range of emergency and elective services and comprehensive trauma, orthopaedic, obstetrics, general surgery and paediatric and neonatal intensive care services. The hospital has a specialist cardiology unit undertaking angiography, angioplasty, an analytical robotics laboratory that reports all East Kent’s General Practitioner (GP) activity and a robotic pharmacy facility. A single Head and Neck Unit for East Kent has recently been established and includes centralised maxillofacial services with all specialist head and neck cancer surgery co-located on the site.

Following our last inspection of the Trust in August 2015, we carried out an announced inspection between 5th and 7th September 2016, and an unannounced insection on 21st September 2016.

This is the third inspection of this hospital. This inspection was specifically designed to test the

requirement for the continued application of special measures to the trust. Prior to inspection we risk

assessed all services provided by the trust using national and local data and intelligence we received from a number of sources. That assessment has led us to include four services (emergency care, medical services, maternity and gynaecology and end of life care) in this inspection.

Overall we rated the William Harvey Hospital as Requires improvement

Safe

We rated The William Harvey Hospital as Requiring improvement for safe because:

Whilst 86% of patients were triaged within 15 minutes, only 34% had a clinician first assessment within one hour and only 17% a decision to admit within two hours. Attendance by a specialist within 30 minutes following referral was only achieved 35% of the time.

Ambulance handover figures for WHH showed an average of 168 occasions per month (July – October 2016) when vehicles were delayed beyond 60 minutes. This represented 7.8% of the total number of patient handovers and was worse than the regional average of 3%. During this period, WHH was consistently in the bottom four of 17 hospitals in the region.
There was a shortage of junior grade doctors and consultants across the medical services at the hospital. This meant that consultants and junior staff were under pressure to deliver a safe and effective service, particularly out of hours and at night.
On medical wards staffing numbers have been increased and the trust monitors safe staffing levels. However, there was a lack clarity amongst staff about the acuity based tool ( to assess appropriate staffing for the complexity of patients cared for ) and leaves staff convinced that there is still insufficient staff on duty for many shifts.
In Maternity, a lack of staffing affected many areas of service planning and the care and treatment of women. This included not meeting national safe staffing guidelines, meaning 1 in 5 women did not receive 1:1 care in labour.
We found poor records management in some areas. Staff did not always complete care records according to the best practice guidance.
The trust did not have adequate maintenance arrangements in place for all of the medical devices in clinical use. This was a risk to patient safety and did not meet MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) guidance. The trust did not have adequate maintenance arrangements in place for the 483 medical devices used in maternity and gynaecology.

However

We saw robust systems in place for reporting and learning from incidents both locally and trust-wide.

Ward and departmental staff wore clean uniforms and observed the trust’s ‘bare below the elbows’ policy. Personal protective equipment (PPE) was available for use by staff in all clinical areas.

The hospital was clean and met infection control standards.

Effective

We rated The William Harvey Hospital as requiring improvement for effective because:

Some documents and records supporting the learning needs of staff were not always completed and there were gaps in the records of training achieved.

Staff annual appraisals rates were worse than last year.

The trust had not completed its audit programme. This meant the hospital was not robustly monitoring the quality of service provision. The hospital performed poorly in a number of national audits such as diabetes services.

There was poor compliance in the use of the end of life documentation across the wards we visited which was reflected in the May 2016 documentation audit undertaken by the SPC team.

However

Care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with current evidence-based guidance, standards, best practice and legislation.
We saw good examples of multidisciplinary working between all staff grades and specialities.

Caring

We rated The William Harvey Hospital as Good for care because:

Staff treated patients with kindness and compassion.

Staff responded compassionately when women in Maternity and Gynaecology needed help and supported them to meet their basic personal needs as and when required. Privacy and confidentiality was respected at all times.
Patients and relatives we spoke with were complimentary about the nursing and medical staff.
Patients were given appropriate information and support regarding their care or treatment and understood the choices available to them.
Responsive

We rated The William Harvey Hospital as requires improvement for responsive because:

Performance indicators such as patients being seen within four hours in A&E remained below trust target and national averages.

Delayed discharges remained a concern.

The hospital was not offering a full seven-day service. Constraints with capacity and staffing limited the responsiveness and effectiveness of the service the hospital was able to offer.

Patients’ access to prompt care and treatment was worse than the England average for a number of specialities. The trust had not met the 62-day cancer referral to treatment time since December 2014. Referral to treatment within 18 weeks was below the 90% standard as set out in the NHS Constitution and England average for six of the eight specialties from June 2015 to May 2016.
Maternity staff had diverted women to another hospital on 28 times between January 2015 and June 2016 due capacity issues.

However

The trust employed specialist nurses to support the ward staff. This included dementia nurses and learning difficulty link nurses who provided support, training and had developed resource files for staff to reference. Wards also had ‘champions’ who acted as additional resources to promote best practice.

Well Led

We rated The William Harvey Hospital as requires improvement for responsive because:

No separate risk register was available for palliative /end of life care. A separate risk register would allow the risks to this patient group be discussed regularly at the end of life board, and allow plans to be made to alleviate any identified risks.

Changes in leadership in end of life care and maternity services had only recently been realised and as a result had yet to fully address the issues relating to these services.

In some areas risk management and quality measurement were not always dealt with appropriately or in a timely way. Risks and issues described by staff did not correspond to those
Where changes were made, appropriate processes were not always followed and the impact was not fully monitored in maternity and gynaecology services

However

Overall, the leadership, governance and culture within the ED was good and we saw examples of good practice regarding visibility of supervisors, comfort rounds and communication. Staff were supported by their managers and were actively encouraged to contribute to the development of the services.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

Improvement and Innovation Hubs were an established forum to give staff the opportunity to learn about and to contribute to the trust’s improvement journey.

However, there were also areas of poor practice where the trust needs to make improvements.

Action the hospital MUST take to improve

Ensure the number of staff appraisals increase to meet the trust target. So that the hospital can assure itself that staff performance and development is being monitored and managed.
Ensure that all staff have attended mandatory training and address gaps in training records that make it difficult to determine if training meets hospital policy requirements.
Ensure that the trust audit programme is completed and that following audits action plans are submitted in a timely manner and these are fully implemented. To have assurance that best practice is being followed.
Have systems established to ensure that there are accurate, complete and contemporaneous records kept and held securely in respect of each patient.
Ensure there are adequate maintenance arrangements in place for all of the medical devices in clinical use in accordance with MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) guidance.
Ensure maternity data is correctly collated and monitored to ensure that the department’s governance is robust.
Ensure that mental capacity assessments are in place for vulnerable adults who lacked capacity.
Ensure generalist nurses caring for end of life patients undergo training in end of life care and the use of end of life care documentation.

Action the hospital SHOULD take to improve.

Ensure there are sufficient numbers of junior grade doctors and consultants across medical services to deliver a safe and effective service particularly out of hours and at night.

Reduce the number of bed moves for medical patients.
Ensure the bereavement suite on Folkestone ward meets the Department of Health Standards.
Review the physical environment within maternity services to ensure it meets the needs of the patients. Specifically temperature control
Ensure that the fast track discharge process is fully implemented for end of life patients to be discharged to their preferred place of care within a short time frame.

There is no doubt that further improvements in the quality and safety of care have been made since our last inspection in July 2015. At that inspection there had been significant improvement since the inspection in March 2014 which led to the trust entering special measures. In addition, leadership is now stronger and there is a higher level of staff engagement in change. My assessment is that the trust is now ready to exit special measures on grounds of quality, However, significant further improvement is needed for the trust to achieve an overall rating of good.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

The William Harvey Hospital (WHH) in Ashford, Kent is one of five hospitals that form part of East Kent University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (EKUFT).

The William Harvey Hospital (WHH) is an acute 476 bedded hospital providing a range of emergency and elective services and comprehensive trauma, orthopaedic, obstetrics, general surgery and paediatric and neonatal Intensive care services. The hospital has a specialist cardiology unit undertaking angiography, angioplasty, an analytical robotics laboratory that reports all East Kent’s General Practitioner (GP) activity and a robotic pharmacy facility. A single Head and Neck Unit for East Kent has recently been established and includes centralised maxillofacial services with all specialist head and neck cancer surgery co-located on the site.

Following our last inspection of the Trust in March 2014 when we found many of the services the Trust provided to be inadequate, EKUHFT was placed into special measures by the Foundation Trust regulator Monitor. This announced inspection was undertaken to assess what progress the Trust had made in addressing our concerns.

We carried out an announced inspection of EKUHFT between 13- 17 July 2015. We also undertook unannounced visits the following week on 29 July 2015.

At this inspection although we found the hospital overall to require improvement we noted there had been improvements made in the majority of services we inspected, particularly in the emergency department, surgical services, children’s services and outpatients.

Our key findings were as follows:

Safe

At the last inspection we told the Trust they must ensure there were sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, skilled, and experienced staff available to deliver safe patient care in a timely manner. At this inspection we found that although staffing overall had improved through a sustained recruitment initiative and the use of agency and bank staff, recruitment continued to be a problem for the hospital. The numbers, skills and qualifications of staff did not always reflect the needs of patients.
We continued to have concerns that the environment and facilities in which patients were cared for were not always safe, well maintained, fit for purpose or met with current best practice standards. For example there was only one obstetric theatre, the temperature on the labour ward was excessively high causing mothers and staff to feel ill, in the fracture clinic there was no designated waiting area for children and their families, the waiting room conditions were cramped and overcrowded; there were carpets in clinical areas and we found taps that did not work.
Access to and availability of equipment had improved since our last inspection through the implementation of an equipment library. However there areas in the hospital where appropriate equipment was not readily available. In the maternity department there was a shortage of basic medical equipment from medical devices such as resuscitation equipment, fetal monitoring equipment and cardiotocography (CTG) devices to broken printers, photocopiers, air-conditioning units and electric fans.
Although the Trust had revised the adverse incident and serious incident policy and had trained more staff in incident investigation and Root Cause Analysis, patients were not always protected from inappropriate or unsafe care because staff were not always reporting incidents. Where incidents were reported there was good evidence that learning was shared and actions taken to prevent reoccurrence.
There was evidence of poor record keeping. In the emergency department we saw records that were not held securely. Where daily audits of records were taking place, there had been no action taken to address the shortfalls.
The management of medicines did not always meet best practice guidance. We saw medicines not kept secure and fridge and room temperatures not always being recorded. We found a number of patient group directions (PGD’s) were out of date.
Staff were aware of the policies for infection prevention and control and adhered to them. The majority of clinical areas we visited were visibly clean and tidy.
We found that attendance at mandatory training had improved along with the system for recording and monitoring attendance although the mandatory training targets and agreed actions had not been achieved. Induction was given to all newly recruited nurses and medical staff, including agency nurses.
Junior doctors told us they felt well supported by the senior medical staff and received regular training.
The recording of patient assessments and the documentation and monitoring of patients’ treatment, needs and observations had improved since our last inspection. Patient observations were undertaken electronically and regular audits were undertaken to check that information was recorded appropriately.

Effective

Most of the services we inspected provided effective care.
National guidance was used to inform the care and treatment of patients and services participated in national and local audits.
Patients generally had good outcomes because they received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
Patients’ care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with current evidence-based guidance, standards, best practice and legislation.
We found there was an effective model of care being used in the emergency department to facilitate prompt treatment of patients on the stroke pathway.
We spoke with practice development nurses who monitored staff practice and competencies to ensure consistency.
At the last inspection we found that the paper and electronic policies, procedures and guidance that staff referred to when providing care and treatment to patients were out of date. The Trust had undertaken a major review of the Trusts policies and procedures and apart from the emergency department and medication policies, the majority were now current and reflected best practice.
We found that although the wards and consultants offered a seven day service they were not always supported by other services. This limited the responsiveness and effectiveness of the service the hospital was able to offer and on occasions delayed discharge. For example there was no access to therapy staff, dieticians or speech and language therapists (SALT) at weekends on the stroke ward. Pharmacy services only available until midday at weekends, which impeded timely discharge for patients who were unable to obtain their discharge medication.
We found that patients were always asked for their consent before any intervention and this was always appropriately recorded.
There was good multidisciplinary working throughout the hospital.
We observed that patients’ nutritional needs were met. They were served a choice of foods and that therapeutic diets were managed well. Dietary supplements were given to people when prescribed.
In general patients received timely effective pain relief.

Caring

Patients and relatives we spoke with during the inspection were very complimentary about the service they received, and the caring and approachable attitude of the staff. Relatives were also involved in the planning of care and told us that they had access to sufficient information about their relative’s condition.
We saw caring and compassionate care being delivered throughout the hospital but in particular we observed staff in the critical care and outpatients and diagnostic and imaging department treating patients, relatives and visitors with respect and thoughtfulness.

Responsive

We found that the hospital did not always have sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the patients admitted.
This meant that patients were often moved between wards during their stay, they were admitted to non-specialty beds where their own doctors were difficult to contact and consultant reviews less likely to occur. Women in labour often had to travel considerable distances to access maternity care when in labour because there was lack of capacity at their nearest hospital. In the emergency department patients were subject to overcrowding with no processes for requesting additional staff or diverting patients to other emergency departments. The lack of capacity had negative implications for the safe care and treatment patients.
The wards must be supported in providing a full seven day service by appropriate numbers of support services such as radiology, physiotherapy and pharmacy.
Patient flow through the hospital was limited by the availability of beds, caused by delayed discharges. In turn delayed discharges associated with provision of on-going support, rehabilitation and delays in take home medication, adversely impacted on the hospital’s bed capacity. The discharge of patients was not managed in a timely manner, especially at weekends. This was raised as a concern at the last inspection.
We also found that support for people with an acute medical condition or emergency care needs but who also had mental health needs was variable.
Surgical referral to treatment times were not being met over consecutive months for surgical specialties. Theatres were not always effectively utilised and this affected performance.
Improvements were needed for the day-care environment, as this did not provide sufficient privacy.
Arrangements were in place to support people with disabilities and cognitive impairments, such as dementia. Translation services were available and information in alternative languages could be provided on request.
The complaints process was understood by staff and patients had access to information to support them in raising concerns. Where complaints were raised, these were investigated and responded to. Where improvements were identified, these were communicated to staff through a range of methods.

Well Led

The Trust had implemented a Special Measures Action plan following our last inspection. The action plan identified where issues had been raised during inspection and outlined actions to be taken by the Trust along with an agreed timescale. This action plan had been RAG rated on delivery of objectives.
We found that the Trust had taken action to refocus its vision and mission strategy. However many of the leadership, organisational and developmental changes were in their infancy and had not had time to deliver the necessary changes to the patient experience.
Work was in progress to develop the directorate strategic aims and principles. Although there was now a clear direction of focus in many of the services, others such as the End of Life team and midwifery unit lacked a clear strategy and strategic direction.
We had concerns that the reduced resources for the End of Life team meant that the planned improvements were unsustainable and could not be implemented on current resources.
Some services such as the midwifery service had been through a period of instability of leadership which led to a great deal of staff dissatisfaction and unrest. Although progress was being made to stabilise the midwifery service with appointments to a number of interim, acting and substantive posts, a number of staff remained unhappy.
We received positive feedback about the changes instigated by the interim chief executive. Staff told us that the change in culture was ‘seeping through every area of the hospital’. They told us that there was ‘positivity in the air which is very exciting’ and that 'management' was slowly becoming more visible and approachable to front line staff. They told us they felt more valued as an employee and encouraged to be better. Staff told us that they felt there were now shared goals and although things were far from perfect there was some direction at last.
Governance arrangements throughout the hospital had been strengthened and were starting to provide more robust information to staff at all levels and to the Trust Board.

We saw areas of outstanding practice including:

The Nurse leadership in outpatients was outstanding with staff inspired to provide a good service to patients. The main outpatient’s matron provided knowledgeable and inspirational support to staff whilst working hard to maintain and improve the service.

However, there were also areas of poor practice where the trust needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the trust must:

There must be sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, skilled, and experienced midwifery staff available to deliver safe patient care in a timely manner.
The environment and facilities in which patients are cared for must be safe, well maintained, fit for purpose and meet with current best practice standards.
The trust must ensure that all taps in clinical rooms are working effectively.
The trust should ensure that clinical areas are not carpeted. Where clinical areas are carpeted they must be managed with effective risk assessment and cleaning regimes.
There must be sufficient equipment in place to enable the safe delivery of care and treatment, that the equipment is regularly maintained and fit for purpose to reduce the risk to patients and staff.
The trust must ensure the hospital has sufficient capacity to cope with the number of women in labour and new born babies on a day to day basis.
The wards must be supported in providing a full seven day service by appropriate numbers of support services such as radiology, physiotherapy and pharmacy.
There must be robust systems in place to monitor the safe management of medicines to ensure that national guidelines are reviewed appropriately and their implementation monitored.

In addition the trust should:

Review the training provided to clinical staff on the Mental Capacity Act and DoLS to ensure all staff understand the relevance of this in relation to their work.
The trust should ensure that surgical staff undertake required training in safety related subjects.
The trust should continue to improve referral to treatment times across all specialities to ensure that patients are treated in an acceptable timeframe following referral to the service.
Standardising inotropic infusions to avoid the risk of potential drug errors when staff engage in cross site working.
There should be a formal vision and strategy for women’s health services to enable the development of a modern maternity service which is woman centred, underpinned by a sound evidence base and benchmarked against best practice standards.
Methods of maintaining the stability of leadership within the maternity department should be established.
The routine administrative burden on maternity staff at weekends and out of hours should be reduced in order to free midwifery staff to look after patients.
Staff should be encouraged to report non-clinical incidents in order that action can be taken to protect patients from avoidable harm.
The electronic system for allocating NHS numbers to new born babies should be functioning, in order to avoid the risk of babies missing screening tests through a manual process with insufficient printers available.
There should be a robust system in place to measure, monitor and analyse common causes of harm to women during pregnancy and childbirth.
The trust should continue to improve Referral to Treatment times across all specialities to ensure that patients are treated in an acceptable timeframe following referral to the service.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

William Harvey Hospital (WHH) is one of five hospitals that form the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, which is one of the largest hospital trusts in England. The trust provides services to the whole of East Kent, which has a population of around 759,000 people.

William Harvey Hospital had approximately 476 inpatient beds. It provided accident and emergency (A&E) services, outpatient services and a range of other specialties. We spoke to more than 75 patients, 18 relatives, and 120 staff while visiting the wards and departments in the hospital. We also held a listening event on 5 March 2014 where we spoke with around 25 people who came to share their views on this and the other hospitals managed by the trust. We undertook unannounced visits to WHH on 19 and 20 March 2014 when we inspected A&E, ward areas and spoke with the estates department.

Before and during our inspection we heard from patients, relatives, senior managers, and other staff about some key issues that were having an impact on the service provided at this hospital.

An issue which dominated many discussions was the trust’s recent proposal to centralise surgical services to this site. The staff we spoke with did not feel consulted in this decision and did not support the decision made by the Board on 14 February 2014. Clinical staff raised detailed concerns with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and with executives within the trust.

This inspection was undertaken because the East Kent trust had been identified as potentially high risk by the CQC’s intelligent monitoring system.

Overall this hospital was rated as good for caring, requires improvement for effective, inadequate for being responsive to patients’ needs and being well led, and inadequate for safety. We therefore rated this hospital as inadequate overall.

Our key findings were as follows:

We saw that staff in all areas of the hospital were caring and responsive to patients’ needs.
We found that there were not always enough appropriately skilled staff, which placed patients at risk of receiving inappropriate care.
The records of patients’ waiting times in A&E were not an accurate reflection of the time patients waited.
The trust’s major incident policy was up to date however staff referred to the out of date policy and there had been mock major incident practice event.
Children’s needs were not always being appropriately met at this hospital.
Most patients on medical wards received care according to national guidelines.
Clostridium difficile (C Diff) and Meticillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas (MRSA) for the trust were within expected statistical limits.
Some equipment was not maintained in accordance with manufacturers’ guidance and therefore may not be fit for use.
There was not enough staff to provide a safe service to women during their pregnancy. The midwife to birth ratio was up to beyond 1:33. This was above the national recommended ratio of midwives to births of 1:28.
Risk management and clinical governance relating to the care of children was not managed effectively. Areas identified as serious concerns had not been addressed for long periods.
Some clinics were routinely overbooked because the number of appointment slots did not always reflect patients’ needs. Patients could therefore experience long waiting times, although they were kept informed about the expected length of delay. Patients who required follow-up appointments often had these appointments cancelled, moved to a later date and often there was a significant delay in patients receiving a follow-up appointments.

We saw an area of good practice:

The critical care unit monitored its performance and data from Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) and showed that patient outcomes were good.

However, there were also areas of poor practice where the trust needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the trust must:

Ensure that there are always sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, skilled, and experienced staff to deliver safe patient care in a timely manner.
Ensure that appropriately trained paediatric staff are provided in all areas of the hospital where children are treated to ensure they receive a safe level of care and treatment.
Ensure all staff are up to date with mandatory training.
Protect patients by means of an effective system for the reporting of all incidents and never events of inappropriate or unsafe care, in line with current best practice and demonstrate learning from this.
Ensure that paper and electronic policies, procedures and guidance referred to by staff in the care and treatment they provide to patients are up to date and reflect current best practice.
Ensure that the assessment and monitoring of patients’ treatment, needs, and observations are routinely documented to ensure they receive consistent and safe delivery of care and treatment.
Ensure that the environment in which patients are cared for is well maintained and fit for purpose.
Ensure that equipment used in the delivery of care and treatment to patients is available, regularly maintained and fit for purpose, and that audits for tracking the use of equipment are completed appropriately to reduce the risk to patients.
Ensure that cleaning schedules are in place in all areas of the hospital, personal protective equipment for staff is in good supply and that in-depth cleaning audits are undertaken in all areas.
Implement regular emergency drills for staff.
Make clear to staff the arrangements in place for the care of patients at the end of life to ensure the patient is protected against the risk of receiving inappropriate or unsafe care.
Review the provision of end of life care to ensure a coordinated approach.

In addition the trust should:

Ensure that patients are informed of the reasons why their appointments are cancelled.
Ensure that letters to patients’ GPs are provided within the timescales established by the trust.
Aim to reduce the number of transfers between wards experienced by patients.
Review discharge arrangements for patients to reduce the risk of re-admissions.
Ensure that strategies are developed and implemented, and that staff are fully aware of them in relation to escalation, emergencies, and dealing with patient capacity issues.
Ensure that patients’ privacy and dignity is maintained at all times.
Manage patient documentation better to minimise risk of breaches to patient confidentiality.
Introduce a policy to make clear the timescales for changing bed curtains.
Ensure handwash and hand gel dispensers are kept topped up, as we found some that were empty or half full.
Review the layout of the A&E majors area to provide improved visibility of patients from the nurses’ station.
Promote the Friends and Family Test (FFT) around the hospital to improve participation.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

This inspection included visits to the following wards: Cambridge K, L and M1, the Clinical Decisions Unit (Male and Female) and Richard Stevens Stroke Unit. We observed and talked with eight patients on the wards and spoke to 14 staff of different levels, including ward managers and junior Drs. We focused on patients in the wards who had reduced mental capacity and needed additional support to understand their treatments and care in the hospital, for example people who had dementia or learning disabilities. Patients told us that they felt well supported by the staff and we observed polite, unrushed interactions between patients and staff when people were being helped to make a decision.

All the staff we spoke to were aware of their responsibilities to support people to make decisions about their care and treatment, if they had reduced capacity and had direct access to the guidance and policies to follow. The trust had increased the level of training and support provided so that staff were able to obtain further advice if needed.

We spoke with eight patients on Cambridge J, five patients on Cambridge K, three patients and two visitors on Cambridge M1. On Kings A2 we talked with nine patients, on Kings C1 we talked with four patients and two relatives, and on Kings D1 we talked with four patients.

Everyone said that their privacy and dignity was protected and promoted. People said staff always pulled the curtain around their bed before any treatment. On Cambridge J a person said. 'They treat me with respect here'. On Cambridge K a person said, "They always pull the curtain around and knock on the toilet and shower doors". On Cambridge M1 a person commented, "Staff speak loudly and clearly enough. Always draw the curtains. They come quickly and they don't rush me if I need to use the commode". On Kings C1 a person said "Yes, staff always speak with kindness and care. Always pull curtains etc". On Kings A2 a person said, "Yes, curtains always drawn and they help with the toilet." On Kings D1 a person commented, "Yes staff are always respectful. They always pull curtains but often forget to pull them back again!"

People said they had been given sufficient information to make a decision and consent to their care and treatment.

Relatives of people who had dementia or confusion commented, "there is a lack of awareness of advanced dementia." They were referring to staff asking the person questions and not being aware of when the person had capacity or not.

People spoke very positively about the care and treatment they had received. On Cambridge J a person said, 'This ward is top dog, I have no complaints at all. They don't rush me and they keep me informed, they show me my records and results'. On Cambridge K people said, 'They have been brilliant, nothing has been too much trouble'. On Kings A2 people said they were given the information they needed about their care and treatment. On Kings C1 one of the relatives said that the staff communicated with them because they were the next of kin and they had been given good information, "The risks and benefits were explained before surgery."

Some people on Cambridge M1 said that they were not given enough information about their care and treatment because staff did not have the time to speak to them. However, despite saying that the staff were busy, one person said, "The care I have always received at William Harvey Hospital is world class and I've never felt unsafe here. There have been hospitals in the UK where I have felt unsafe but not here."

On all the wards people said they were satisfied with the food provided. One person said, "The food is brilliant and I am looked after well... you can have extra if you want it." Another person said, "The food is served hot, I have no complaints about the food. There is a choice and I am given time, I am never rushed." People said that there was a good range of choices of food. One person commented, "The food is pretty good. There are three choices. The last two mornings I have had a cooked breakfast."

People said the food was good but it was not always hot. People also commented that by the time they got "'the ice-cream it had turned to liquid."

People said they were impressed with the standard of hygiene and cleanliness in the wards. They said that the wards were clean and that they saw cleaners come everyday and the care staff cleaned too. They commented "'cleaning staff come round two or three times a day cleaning." "The sheets are changed every day, the ward is very clean." There was only one negative comment and that was on Cambridge M1 and again related to there not being enough staff to carry out tasks in a timely way.

A person on Kings A2 said, "Staff are straightaway your friend when you come in. There are plenty of them too." They said staff were available to help when they needed assistance. One comment was "'yes they are, sometimes have to wait a little, they are run off their feet." One person on Cambridge J commented, "The staff are pretty good." "Sometimes they rush, but usually they are good."

People we spoke to said that their call bells were answered quickly apart from people on Cambridge M1.

On Cambridge M1 people were concerned about the lack of staff. They said this had meant that some people had to wait for assistance.

People said, "The staff are very nice, very pleasant". "The nurses are happy, I do not know how they manage it and stay happy as they are very busy".

People said they felt confident in the staff who were supporting them.

We did not speak to people who used this service as part of this review. We looked at a random sample of medical records. This was to check that current practice ensured that no treatment for the termination of pregnancy was commenced unless two certificated opinions from doctors had been obtained.

People told us that they 'were not given a lot of information prior to or soon after admission to the ward'. They said that 'The nursing care has been very good', and that 'Nurses were so patient'.

They also said that sometimes care staff can be rushed, and perhaps there should be more care staff on the ward. We spoke with two people who both told us that care staff treated them with kindness and respect at all times, and that they felt safe on the ward.

Everyone we spoke to on Bethersden ward said that they were satisfied with their care and treatment. People told us that even though the staff appeared busy, they always had time to talk to patients and ask how they were.

People said that they felt safe and that their privacy and dignity was respected. People said that they were kept informed about their care and treatment and had been given choices and options of treatment when available.

All Inspections

Professor Edward Baker

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Professor Sir Mike Richards