Agenda item

To consider a presentation from East Cheshire NHS Trust regarding the CQC’s Inspection Report of May 2015 and how the Trust has responded to the actions recommended in the report.

(report to follow)

John Wilbraham, Chief Executive of East Cheshire NHS Trust (the Trust), provided an overview of the issues raised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC)’s inspection. He stated that the Trust had been open and accepting of the feedback from the CQC and the rating that the Trust received. The CQC’s inspection had been a good learning opportunity for the Trust and a lot of progress on the required improvements had been made in the past 15 months. Bridget Lees from the CQC concurred that the Trust had made good progress and was pleased with the work done.

Members of the Committee asked a variety of questions about each of the Trust’s services and the issues which were identified by the CQC. The CQC’s inspection had identified some simply issues which the Trust had been able to address quickly. Also, in relation to staff shortages, the Trust had made some improvements by recruiting more staff in community services. The Trust ensured that staff training was up to date and regularly monitored. The CQC had also identified potential issues and risk (as apposed to actual problems) and these had been addressed by the Trust to ensure problems were avoided. The Trust was confident that it would now be able to achieve a ‘Good’ rating from the CQC if another inspection took place. The Trust wanted to aim to become ‘Outstanding’ and was trying to learn from other trusts and had taken part in a peer review with Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport. The Trust was also a partner in the Caring Together transformation programme which would see more services delivered in partnership and focus on the needs of patients.

Representatives of the Trust Development Authority (TDA) attended the meeting and the Chairman offered the opportunity to comment. The TDA met the Trust Board on a monthly basis to consider performance across a variety of areas and worked with the Trust on issues such as staffing and agency spend. The Trust was fully engaged with the TDA and doing well in a variety of areas compared with national counterparts.

Representatives of NHS England were also present and offered the opportunity to comment. They suggested that the Trust’s Accident and Emergency performance was one of the best in the North West and were recommending that other trusts could learn from East Cheshire.  They also suggested that the Trust was working well with partners  on joint working, providing services in the community and getting value for money.

Having considered the information provided by the Trust and response to members’ questions the Committee agreed that the Trust had provided sufficient assurance that despite the ‘Requires Improvement’ rating it had received from the CQC for it’s inspection in December 2014 services were safe and providing a high quality of care to Cheshire East residents. The Committee agreed that the findings and conclusions from this meeting should be drafted into a report to be published and shared with stakeholders.

The Committee was informed that the CQC would soon be reporting on an inspection of the Trust’s out of hours service which had recently taken place. The Committee requested that the report be shared with members once it was available.

RESOLVED

(a)  That the Committee findings and conclusions from the meeting be drafted into a report to be published and shared with stakeholders.

(b)  That the Committee receives the Care Quality Commission’s inspection report on East Cheshire NHS Trust’s out of hours service once it has been published.