Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust Quality Account 2016-2017

Care Quality Commission (CQC)
The trust is registered with the Care Quality Commission under the Health and Social Care
Act 2008. The CQC is the independent health and adult social care regulator. Their role is
to make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective,
compassionate, high-quality care. They do this by monitoring, inspecting and regulating
services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety.
NGH currently has no conditions attached to registration and has not been required to take
part in any special reviews or investigations under section 48 of the Health and Social
Care Act 2008.
All NHS organisations that are obliged to publish Quality Accounts or equivalent should
include in them quantitative and qualitative data describing the number of formally reported
concerns in addition to incident reports, the action taken in respect of them and feedback
on the outcome.
A focused, short-notice announced CQC inspection of the trust took place on 30 January,
7-9 and 17 February 2017. The inspection team focused on the four core services
medicine, surgery, urgent care and end of life care. The first three were rated requires
improvement and the later inadequate at the inspection in 2014. There was also a review
of the well-led domain at trust level. The report was published on 23 May 2017 showing
the four core services inspected were all rated as good.
The inspection team acknowledged the significant action taken and improvements the trust
had made since the January 2014 inspection, particularly in relation to the focus on patient
safety supported by the open and inclusive staff culture. Currently the overall rating for the
trust remains as requires improvement.
The CQC have advised they will return prior to August 2017 to inspect the remaining four
core services (Critical care, Outpatients & diagnostic imaging, Maternity and gynaecology
and Services for children and young people). After this inspection the ratings for all the
core services will be aggregated and revised ratings given for the trust as a whole.
Ten areas of outstanding practice were specifically recognised in the report.
The trust was given one requirement notice. This was in relation to evidence of completion
of mental capacity assessments in the patient’s health record, particularly when decisions
are made about performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
A trust-wide action plan was developed by the executive team in response to this and
other initial feedback given at the end of the inspection. This included work relating to
Ensuring review of patient risk assessments for venous thromboembolism (VTE).
The safer surgery checklist in plastic surgery to be reviewed to be compliant with
the World Health Organisation (WHO) Five steps to safer surgery principles.
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