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Posted on 1 Mar 2024

Hello everyone

Today, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is publishing its reports following inspection of our services in acute wards for adults and psychiatric intensive care units (PICU) and wards for older people with mental health problems.  The inspections took place in October, November and December 2023.    

The CQC found a number of areas that needed to be improved and we have therefore been rated as inadequate overall for both the services we provide to inpatient adults and older adults.  These are decreased ratings from our previous inspections. 

The safety and wellbeing of our patients is always our priority. We welcome inspections as they are an important way for us to understand how we are doing, identify any areas for improvement and the opportunity to make things better. 

I absolutely accept that these inspections found care that was not of the standard or quality that it should have been and I apologise unreservedly that we have let down patients who have not received the level of care they deserve. I recognise that we have to do better, to make changes in the way we deliver care so we can help those who need us and reassure the public of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire that it is a good thing to seek care and support from us. 

We have responded quickly to start that improvement journey. Some examples of the changes we have made so far since the inspections took place include:  

• Increased support and oversight of clinical practice - including a group with responsibility for overseeing improvements are happening, and listening to and acting on patients’ feedback. 
• Additional senior nurse capacity and support into adult services and older people's services, consolidating the role of the service manager and matron to reduce the numbers of wards each is responsible for, which means they will have greater oversight.
• Increased medicines management training and improved medicine administration.
• A review of all observations with a specific focus on listening to patients’ experiences, revised and enhanced training packages for substantive and bank staff so they are all fully aware of how to carry out therapeutic observations to keep patients safe.
• Strengthened the patient safety team with additional senior nurses to further support the implementation of the national Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) to ensure we learn from incidents and take action as a result.
• Established a ward managers development programme.
• Active recruitment campaign to reduce the need for agency staff.
• Enhanced daily checks on records of patients’ leave to ensure risk assessments and safety measures are in place. 

We will continue to work closely with the CQC, our colleagues, and importantly those who use our services and their families, so that the experience for all those who use our services is vastly improved.

The full reports can be found on the CQC website.

Thanks

Ifti