Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Type of Trust
NHS hospital trust
Trust Details
Last annual budget
Employees
Chair Harry Turner
Chief Executive Penny Venables
Links
Website Worcestershire Acute Hospitals
Care Quality Commission reports CQC

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust runs the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, Kidderminster Hospital & Treatment Centre, and Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester.

Reorganisation

Services in Kidderminster and Redditch have been under threat for many years. Proposals to downgrade Kidderminster hospital provoked the establishment of Independent Community and Health Concern. Their candidate Dr Richard Taylor defeated David Lock the sitting Labour MP in the 2001 General Election. The building of the new Treatment Centre, in Kidderminster was handled by Durrow healthcare consultancy.[1]

In November 2013 further proposals to reduce services in Redditch were opposed by Redditch, Bromsgrove and Stratford councils who claimed "The removal of services from Redditch will leave what is already a vulnerable society, with the worst accessibility to health services in the region, and will introduce substantial inequalities with the populations of Redditch, Bromsgrove, Studley, Alcester and neighbouring areas being significantly worse off than all other areas in Worcestershire."[2]

Incidents

In December 2013 the Trust had to cancel non-urgent operations and appointments due to increased pressure on their A&E units.[3]

In April 2014 it was revealed that the Trust had mislaid up to 270,000 ultrasound scans which were stored on obsolete technology dating back to 2004. Andrew Brown, whose complaints led to this revelation had been labelled a ‘vexatious complainant’ after raising concerns about his treatment at Worcestershire Royal Hospital over several years.[4]

The Trust's Chief Operating Officer, Stewart Messer, attempted to ban Stuart Gardner, a UNISON representative of the West Midlands Ambulance Service from Trust premises in January 2015 after he told the BBC about 18 patients being treated in corridors at the Worcester Royal Hospital. Messer claimed the staff were upset.[5] The Trust later agreed with the union they did not have the authority to ban the paramedic from its premises and an apology was issued for suggesting he should be.[6]

The Trust opened a new cancer treatment unit which has three linear accelerators in January 2015, a partnership with University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, which it hopes will treat about 1,500 patients per year who previously had to travel for radiotherapy. It is also intended to extend the chemotherapy services available on the site.[7]

Nurses at the Alexandra Hospital have complained of serious bullying by their seniors.[8]

In February 2015 it was reported that four emergency consultants had resigned from the Woodrow Drive hospital and another emergency consultant had resigned from the Worcestershire Royal Hospital. Consequently, the future of the Alexandra Hospital Accident and Emergency department is in doubt.[9] Their resignation letter accuses “successive management decisions” of undermining services at the Alexandra, which they say has “led to the self-fulfilling prophecy of failing and unsustainable services” and that the proposed service model would be “neither an A&E service nor a safe service”.[10]

In April 2015, after a major incident at Worcestershire Royal Hospital when seven patients had to be cared for in a corridor Neal Stote, chairman of the Save the Alex campaign claimed that reconfiguration plans meant that "Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is trying to make us go to a hospital which is not only hard to get to but a hospital which, when you get there, is unable to cope."[11]

The Care Quality Commission carried out an inspection of the trust's accident and emergency departments in March 2015. They found numerous examples where patient safety was at risk. Medication was not given in a timely manner, patient notes were not up-to-date and there were "inadequate" security arrangements.[12]

In September 2015 Redditch and Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioning Group asked local GPs not to refer patients to the Trust over the next three months because it was unable to treat patients within 18 weeks of referral. Waiting times were out of control in ear, nose and throat, trauma and orthopedics, gynaecology, general surgery and dermatology. 2,347 patients had waited more than 18 weeks.[13]

11 patients were infected after treatment at the Alexandra Hospital endoscopy unit in 2015, seven with Pseudomonas and four with Serratia. The machines for decontaminating endoscopes were more than eight years old and in need of replacement.[14]

The trust was put into special measures in December 2015 after a Care Quality Commission in July.[15]

Finance

The trust performs about 95,000 planned and emergency operations each year, with 140,000 A&E attendances and about 500,000 outpatient appointments. In September 2015 it predicted a deficit of £58 million against turnover of £364 million. It had been given a temporary working capital facility of £19m. The 30-year private finance initiative scheme at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital which runs until 2032 costs the trust about £13.6m a year.[16] In February 2016 it was expecting a deficit of £65 million for the year 2015/6.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Fingers on the pulse". BD Online. 24 August 2004. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
  2. ↑ "Cutting hospital services will hurt poor report warns". Redditch Standard. 11 November 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  3. ↑ "Worcestershire hospitals cancel surgery due to A&E demand". BBC News. 31 December 2013. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
  4. ↑ "Up to 270,000 items of Worcestershire patient's data could be inaccessible". Worcester News. 30 April 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  5. ↑ "Worcestershire hospitals ban paramedic Stuart Gardner". BBC News. 15 January 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "Hospital bosses' U-turn over whistle-blowing paramedic ban". Droitwich Standard. 20 January 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  7. ↑ "Worcester mayor visits new oncology centre". Worcester News. 27 January 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Nurses at Redditch's Alexandra Hospital 'reduced to tears' BBC News 6 February 2015
  9. ↑ A&E future in doubt as consultants quit Redditch Standard 13 February 2015
  10. ↑ "Consultants' en masse resignation letter exposes rift with trust management". Health Service Journal. 12 March 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  11. ↑ "Fears for Redditch patients after Worcester meltdown". Redditch Standard. 18 April 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  12. ↑ "Worcestershire Royal emergency patients are 'at risk' says CQC". BBC. 16 June 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  13. ↑ "GPs told to refrain from referring to local hospital for three months". Pulse. 9 September 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  14. ↑ "11 patients infected in ‘unsafe’ endoscopy unit". Health Service Journal. 8 October 2015. Retrieved 14 November 2015.
  15. ↑ "‘Inadequate’ Worcestershire trust placed in special measures". Health Service Journal. 2 December 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  16. ↑ "Worcestershire trust faces £58m deficit". Health Service Journal. 17 September 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
  17. ↑ "One in four trusts plunge deeper into the red". Health Service Journal. 25 February 2016. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
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