WARRINGTON North MP Helen Jones has met senior staff at Warrington Hospital to discuss how they plan to improve services following a recent inspection report which found the trust “requires improvement”.
While recognising that the hospital is under funded and that staff are working hard she says it is important the hospital provides a service that is as good as it can be.
The meeting followed an inspection by the Care Quality Commission in November which found that while the hospital had made some good progress there was still improvement required.
These included a total of 30 areas for improvement.
Helen Jones
Helen said: “ Along with my colleague, Derek Twigg MP, I met senior staff to discuss their plans for improvement. We spent some time listening to their proposals and asking questions about how they plan to move forward.
“ While some services at the trust are excellent everyone recognised that more needs to be done to bring all the rest up to the same standard.
“ I know that staff are working under intense pressure and that the trust has a historic deficit. I also recognise that it is significantly underfunded. Nevertheless people in Warrington rely on the services that the hospital provides and we all want to ensure that they are as good as they can be. I trust that, as the plans we discussed are implemented, we will see improvements and I am really grateful to the staff of our NHS who are working extremely hard to provide a good service without all the resources they need. ”
Warrington & Halton Hospitals Chief Executive Mel Pickup, said: “The Trust was inspected by the Care Quality Commission between 7 – 10th March 2017 and received the final inspection report on 15th November 2017. At Warrington Hospital Surgery, End of Life and Children and Young People services were rated as ‘Good’ and at Halton Hospitals Urgent Care Services and Surgery were rated as ‘Good’. Overall the Trust was rated ‘Good’ for Caring.
“The CQC highlighted areas of good practice including the development of the Paediatric Acute Response team, our direct access to electronic information held by GPs and community services, the innovative public engagement work for the urgent care centre with Widnes Vikings to promote the appropriate use of services and the Dementia-friendly environment on the Forget Me Not Unit.
“Although disappointed we weren’t able to demonstrate sufficient improvement since our last inspection to be rated ‘Good’ overall, we are pleased that the Chief Inspector did recognise the many improvements made since 2015 against a context of significant challenges for the NHS.
“In the nine months since our inspection we have already undertaken significant improvements based on the verbal feedback at time of inspection in March 2017. Our improvement journey towards ‘Good’ continues and our patients should be assured that their safe, quality care and experience remains our highest priority. We thank them for taking the time to share their views with us through the Friends and Family test where we consistently exceed 90% recommending WHH as a place to receive care and treatment.
