Rotherham Hospital criticised by inspectors over children's care

Staff from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) made an unannounced visit to the hospital in July and published their findings last week.

Their checks focused on urgent and emergency care, particularly of young patients.

They also inspected how the hospital managed those on ventilation machines and found that such people were not properly cared for.

The watchdog’s findings included “insufficient escalation and management of [a] deteriorating child” and “a lack of oversight and governance of the risks to child patients” in the A&E unit.

During checks on emergency care, inspectors highlighted three “serious incidents [highlighting] a lack of clinical oversight, poor medicines management and delayed diagnosis and treatment of children”.

They noted that there was “no paediatric-specific training for staff or competency assessment in place for sepsis or diabetes”.

Staff “did not routinely use paediatric early warning scores (PEWS) on all children attending the department”, they added.

And, in some cases, “patient records were not complete and contained errors and omissions”.

Inspectors found that “daily resuscitation equipment checklist records were not always completed by staff” on the emergency unit.

But the watchdog noted that a “paediatric task-and-finish group” had been established to manage improvements in these areas, following their visit.

On the wards, the CQC staff reported, “insufficient management, oversight and governance” of risks to ventilation patients.

Ventilation was not always done in accordance with British Thoracic Society guidelines, the inspectors said.

Patients were not always cared for in specific areas, nurse staffing levels were not always sufficient to meet their needs and records “contained errors and omissions” and “showed evidence of delayed escalation and delayed or missed observations”.

The inspectorate used its powers to demand “assurance that immediate risks to patients were being addressed”.

These allow the CQC to take urgent enforcement action if it has reasonable cause to believe someone may be exposed to the risk of harm.

But hospital bosses “provided a detailed response” to concerned inspectors, who found that “sufficient actions had been planned to address the immediate risks to patient safety within the service”.

Angela Wood, interim chief nurse at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We always aim to provide the best care possible for our patients.

“We welcome the CQC’s report which, in addition to informal feedback given at the time, has highlighted some areas of concern.

“Immediate actions were taken and improvements continue to be made in the areas highlighted.

“[These include] further staff training, improvements to staffing levels and the relocation of patients receiving non-invasive ventilation to our high dependency unit (HDU).

“We are continuing to work closely with the CQC and are providing them with regular progress reports on the improvements we are making to ensure our patients get the care they need.”