CQC publishes ‘Well-Led’ report following inspection at St George’s
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) today publishes its findings from a ‘Well-Led’ inspection at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in February.
The independent regulator of health and social care in England has confirmed the trust’s leadership is rated “Requires Improvement”.
A spokesperson from St George’s University Hospital Trust, said: “Any member of staff not feeling heard or supported is one too many and we fully accept this rating is not where we want to be for our staff and local communities.
“We have taken immediate actions to strengthen our support for staff and improve the oversight of quality and safety of our services – but there is more to do, and we’re taking further steps to support and listen to our colleagues, while strengthening the diversity of our leadership teams.”
Key findings include:
- Leaders did not always have clear oversight of safety risks, meaning they could not always act quickly to keep people safe.
- More staff contacted CQC anonymously after this inspection with further concerns they did not feel safe to raise openly, including a blame culture.
- CQC identified discrimination in recruitment and career progression at a previous inspection, but improvements to this remained ineffective.
- Leaders had not fully embedded the group strategy they published in May 2023, and not all staff understood their place in this to improve services.
- Inspectors found “great partnership working”, such as improvements to people’s care in urology, made particularly significant given long waits in urology nationally.
- St George’s had also embarked on several projects to improve care in their local communities, such as by offering extra services for people with frailty-related conditions and sought feedback from those communities.
- The trust had a dedicated research and innovation team, involved in over 300 clinical trials to improve people’s healthcare.
- Leaders had worked with other trusts in their area to open a new orthopaedic centre, which helped people spend less time in hospital.
The trust did not wait for the report to be published but instead used the CQC’s feedback as a catalyst for change, taking immediate actions to intervene in teams where we have identified an issue and strengthen our support for staff.
The leadership team since February’s inspection includes a new Chief Nurse, Chief Midwifery Officer and incoming Chief Executive after a number of colleagues have moved on to new roles, and alongside clinical and site leaders at St George’s, will continue to make sure safety concerns are heard and addressed
The trust is also setting up a new ‘inclusive health board’ to strengthen the diversity of leadership at senior level and provide a new perspective on how we address our biggest challenges.
We will share the CQC’s report once it has been published online.
