The Care Quality Commission
  • Hospital
  • NHS hospital

Southport and Formby District General Hospital

Overall: Not rated read more about inspection ratings

Town Lane, Southport, PR8 6PN (01704) 547471

Provided and run by:
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Important: This service was previously managed by a different provider - see old profile

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

Date of assessment 4 March to 19 March 2024. We conducted an on-site, focused assessment visit at Southport and Formby District General Hospital emergency department on 4 March 2024 in response to concerns around access, flow, and care of patients in temporary escalation spaces. We assessed a number of quality statements from the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions. We have not rated this service since the provider of this service changed. This assessment did not cover all parts of our Single Assessment Framework; therefore, this service remains unrated. We will carry out future assessments to cover other parts of the Framework and will update our website with our findings. The service mostly provided and maintained safe systems of care, in which safety was managed, monitored, and assured. However, people were not always cared for in the right place. We found a breach of regulation for safe care and treatment in the safe, effective and responsive domains.

24 January 2024

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Southport and Formby District General Hospital provides adult acute inpatient beds to approximately 224,402 people across Southport, Formby, and West Lancashire, as well as providing emergency and urgent care, critical care, outpatient diagnostic and rehabilitation services. It also provides the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre which delivers specialist care for spinal patients across the North West and the Isle of Man.

Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust previously managed Southport and Formby District General Hospital. In July 2023 the Trust was acquired by St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and it is now known as Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

We carried out this unannounced, focused inspection because we received information giving us concerns about the safety and quality of the services.

We inspected the core services of medical care and Spinal Injuries Centre.

We did not rate these services at this inspection. We found:

  • The service had enough nursing and medical staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records.
  • Staff provided effective care and treatment and gave patients enough to eat and drink.
  • The service had policies and procedures in place to support staff and keep patients safe. Managers monitored the effectiveness of processes and made sure staff were competent.

However:

  • Records were not always stored securely.
  • The service did not have a 7-day dietetic or speech and language service.
  • The service did not have enough dietitians or speech and language therapists.

How we carried out the inspection

We carried out an unannounced inspection (staff did not know we were coming) to enable us to observe routine activity. We carried out a focussed inspection of the core services of medical care and the Spinal Injuries Unit only.

5 inspectors carried out the inspection on the 24 January 2024 with support from an offsite operations manager. We spoke with 5 patients, 14 staff and reviewed 18 patient records. The inspection was overseen by Karen Knapton, Deputy Director of Operations.

You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.