Sheffield Teaching Hospitals: City shows its support for NHS staff in wake of critical inspectors' report

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was ordered to make “significant improvements” this week after a Care Quality Commission report downgraded it from “good”.

The healthcare provider was rated “requires improvement” in all areas – except for its ability to keep patients safe, which was graded “inadequate".

Trust bosses said they are “devastated” by the findings.

Despite the critical rating, Sheffield’s public have offered their support to the NHS’ “overworked” and “passionate” staff in the wake of the report.

"The NHS has worked their absolute socks off during the pandemic by risked their lives to work on the front line,” said Star reader Shiree Varley.

"I have worked with many nurses and by the end of the shift they are absolutely worn out,” said reader Maureen Downs. “The doctors, nurses and support staff is 100 per cent.

"Why is nobody blaming the real villains here? Which is this disgraceful Government. They should hang their heads in shame.

"At the end of the day hospital staff are only human.”

While the report criticised the training and safety measures of staff at the trust in places, it consistently said staff were “proud to work” for their hospitals, and “treated patients with compassion and kindness”.

A severe concern for inspectors was the staffing levels across the trust, and it repeatedly found there were not enough staff to keep patients safe effectively.

The trust said it was suffering from high staff sickness rates during the inspection in October and November, and says it has now hired 500 new full times nurses.

But one reader, Anne Marples, was more skeptical of the conditions NHS staff are facing.

"And where is all the needed staff expected to come from? Few people coming to the workforce want to work in the nhs, the pay is too low, the hours can be ridiculous and the conditions are awful,” she wrote.

"Clapping for them didn't help, then?” remarked Ben Johnson. “Never mind. They've got the extra £350 million a week from Brexit, and the 40 new hospitals and 20,000 new nurses that the Tories promised in their election campaign.

“Oh, wait. None of that ever actually happened did it?”

The report was most critical of all of the Jessop Wing maternity services and of ‘medical care’ at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, which were both rated ‘inadequate’.

The condemnation of Jessop Wing was particularly damning, as it came six months after it was first rated ‘inadequate’ following a visit in March. Despite this, when the CQC visited in October, they ruled services had “deteriorated further”.

Against all this, on Star reader wrote: “I was diagnosed with cancer in January this year, the staff in gynae oncology clinic at Jessops were fantastic, from start to finish, I had my surgery in the Hallamshire, my consultant and his team saved my life. For this, my family and myself will be forever grateful.”