The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report on medical care (including older people’s care) at Great Western Hospital in Swindon following an inspection on 16 May last year.
The hospital is run by Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the department provides medical care for adults of all ages, including older adults. This includes both planned and unplanned care. The medical division operates across ten wards with a total of 320 beds.
As this was a focused inspection looking at specific areas as part of our usual monitoring of services, no new ratings were produced, so the service remains rated as good overall from its previous inspection. The service also remains rated as good for safe, effective, caring, and well-led from the previous inspection. Responsive remains rated as requires improvement from the previous inspection.
The overall ratings for Great Western Hospital and the trust are also unchanged and remain as requires improvement.
Inspectors found medical care was well-run, with enough staff to provide safe and effective care. Leaders managed safety incidents well and ensured lessons were learned from them. Staff worked well together as a team and acted on people’s risks as needed, keeping good care records. People staying on the wards praised staff responsiveness.
On one ward, a storage cupboard for people’s records was broken and the trust addressed this. Where people were cared for in corridors, for minimal amounts of time while awaiting a bed, they said they felt safe although some wanted more privacy. Staff carried out risk assessments beforehand and people were kept well-informed, receiving regular care as well as food and drink.
Due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report has not published as soon after the inspection as it should have done. The programme involved changes to the technology CQC uses but resulted in problems with the systems and processes rather than the intended benefits.
CQC is taking urgent steps to ensure that inspection reports are published in a much timelier manner.