Inspectors rate Sheffield hospitals '˜good'

Inspectors from the care Quality Commission (CQC) visited Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in December.

In their subsequent report, published today, inspectors rated the trust ‘good’ overall, with many services rated as ‘outstanding’.

This means the trust is one of 18 out of 174 NHS trusts nationally to have achieved green in every one of the five domains which the CQC use to rate a NHS organisation.

Sir Andrew Cash, chief executive at the trust, said: “All our staff and volunteers work so hard to do their best for patients and so I am pleased that this has been reflected in the Good rating. I am very proud and privileged to work with such a fantastic team of people.

“We have over 16,000 people working and volunteering across the Trust and every one of them contributes to providing high quality care, no matter what role they have or at what level.

The report highlights some innovative and outstanding care and that comes from our staff being committed to continuous improvement in all that we do. The report does highlight some areas where we can improve and indeed many of these are already being actioned.”

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals runs the Royal Hallamshire and Northern General Hospitals as well as Weston Park Cancer Hospital, Charles Clifford Dental Hospital and the Jessop Wing Maternity Hospital.

“The trust also provides a wide range of community health services to people across Sheffield.

The Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said: “We found the care at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to be of a good standard.

“There was a clear vision and strategy for delivering the highest standards of patient care with quality and safety as a key focus.

“Inspectors noted that there was a culture of innovation and improvement, evident throughout all levels of the organisation.

“There was a well-established culture of continuous improvement at the trust and they had good systems for supporting small scale service improvements. We found very positive examples of patient care.

“On the intensive care units, an electronic patient information system was in use, which ensured effective care was delivered and it was fully integrated and provided real-time information across teams and services.

“Within midwifery, the one to one team and specialist midwife clinics gave greater assurance that high risk women continued to have a choice on the care they received in pregnancy.”