Urgent care and emergency care at QMC rated as 'requires improvement' after inspection

QMC is part of Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) and provides a wide range of NHS services, including a major trauma centre, for people across Nottinghamshire and the surrounding areas.

CQC carried out an unannounced inspection as part of its continual checks on the quality of healthcare.

CQC also inspected medical care at both QMC and Nottingham City Hospital, which is also run by NUH, and rated it ‘good’ for both sites.

The overall rating for QMC remains at ‘requires improvement’, while it remains ‘good’ for City Hospital.

Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC deputy director of hospitals in its central region, said: “When we visited QMC’s urgent and emergency care services, we found a department under pressure that was often caring for more people than it was designed for.

"Staff sometimes cared for people in corridors because there wasn’t enough space and, as a result, they didn’t always properly monitor people or provide effective handovers with colleagues.

“Leaders didn’t always give staff enough support to keep people safe.”

"We have told leaders where issues remain in urgent and emergency care, particularly around staffing, training and the safe management of people cared for in corridors.

“We’ll continue to monitor the service and expect to see further improvements.”

For medical care at both QMC and City Hospital, inspectors reported that staff ‘treated people with kindness and dignity, worked well with partner organisations to support people after they left hospital, and ran creative projects to improve people’s experiences of care’.

Tracy Pilcher, chief nurse at NUH said: “The CQC has rightly highlighted the challenging conditions that colleagues in our emergency department have been working under for a prolonged period of time.

“The issues raised are known to us and we are working hard to address them

"In particular, corridor care is not something we want in our hospitals and it is absolutely not what we want for our patients.

"Delivering care in unacceptable spaces isn’t right for our patients or for our staff, and we apologise to those who are in those environments.

"Our staff are working incredibly hard under tremendous pressure and we are very grateful to them for what they do.

“There is much more to do on corridor care but there is no quick fix.

"We are listening and we are doing everything we can to make it better.

"We have introduced a new general internal medicine ward, and we are seeing positive outcomes from a programme of work to reduce length of stay.

At times of pressure, staff move to support teams in the emergency department, and we having open and honest conversations with colleagues, at board level and with regulators.

“It is heartening to hear that despite the challenges, patients told the CQC that they were positive about our staff and that the inspectors saw a positive culture where staff worked together and supported each other.”

“We are pleased the CQC has rated the medical care at both City Hospital and QMC as ‘good’ across all domains.

“We would like to thank our staff that work hard every day to provide the best care possible to our patients.”