Lincoln County Hospital has come under scrutiny by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) due to not meeting four essential standards of quality and safety.
A report by the CQC has been issued after an unannounced visit to the city’s hospital in June to observe the care patients received during their stay, and to make sure the United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust (ULHT) were in compliance with the new quality and safety standards, issued April 1 2010.
Areas of concern
Talking and observing patients, some waited up to four hours in theatre recovery due to lack of beds. This also led to the use of bed pans instead of toilets, which are lacking in the area. This may be a compromise to patients’ dignity. Some staff left medication at patients’ bedside rather than helping them take it when needed.
Patients also found that they could not always identify staff due to lack of introduction or clearly displayed name badges, and the needs of patients with a learning disability were not fully understood by all staff.
If staff felt a patient was being abused, not all were clear on what to do about it, and not all received training on protecting vulnerable adults, the report found. Bank nursing staff were also not clear about training and development opportunities.
Good teamwork
The CQC also found examples of people receiving good care, such as staff knowing what to do if a patient’s condition deteriorated, adequate staff levels, patients knowing who to go to about care needs, and what to if they didn’t feel they didn’t feel their needs were met.
Staff interviewed by the commission also said that they enjoyed their job and the hospital, and good teamwork took place among theatre staff.
Even though the breaches are not a risk to patients, the ULHT will now have to provide the Commission of Quality Care with an action plan detailing how they will combat the issues outlined in the report.
Andrea Gordon, CQC regional director, said: “During our inspection of Lincoln County Hospital we were pleased to see examples of people receiving really good quality care.
“It is true that we found evidence to show the trust is not meeting four standards, however, we want to reassure the public that we do not believe there are immediate risks to patient safety.
“We will be monitoring progress closely and will not hesitate to take action and use our powers to drive improvement where necessary.”
The ULHT have welcomed the criticisms and are beginning to tackle the issues, said a statement from the Trust.
“We have already begun work to address the areas where action needs to be taken. We are pleased that the CQC has recognised that patient safety is always the trust’s foremost priority and that we provide safe care to our patients.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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