ICS told to increase help for trust that treated patients on the floor

A troubled integrated care system has been told it must provide more help to a severely under-pressure acute trust where patients were treated on the floor and in a storeroom.

The Care Quality Commission said Devon ICS must give more “input” to University Hospitals Plymouth Trust, where inspectors warned staff could “not ensure the safety of all patients” arriving at the emergency department.

During a visit to the trust’s Derriford Hospital in September, inspectors saw staff treating six patients who “lay on the floor” of the ambulatory assessment unit, while another patient who had been in the department overnight was being “treated/assessed in the ‘storeroom’” – according to the CQC’s report.

Inspectors reported: “The department was overcrowded, there was no seating available… Social distancing was not possible.”

While the CQC praised senior leaders in the ED and executive chiefs for being “open to challenge” and “understanding the problems” faced by the urgent and emergency care service, inspectors said there was only so much the trust could do alone.

Catherine Campbell, head of hospital inspection at CQC, said: “The impact of a high number of patients attending to receive care, combined with reduced staffing levels in the ED, created issues that the trust couldn’t solve alone and further support was needed from the local health and social care system."

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Source: HSJ, 19 January 2022