Hospital bosses have been told that two Lincolnshire emergency departments need “urgent improvements”.
Care Quality Commission officials said that both Lincoln County Hospital and Boston Pilgrim Hospital A&Es must improve after inspections prompted by patient safety concerns.
Inspectors rated the emergency departments as “inadequate” overall following visits last month.
United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust apologised and said it had “fallen short of what patients would expect”.
The CQC took enforcement action on the trust which means it must adhere to conditions including:
Ensuring patients are seen within a specified time frame
Appropriate systems are in place if a patient’s health deteriorates following admission
Enough skilled staff are always on duty
Patients are treated with dignity and respect
Ted Baker, chief inspector of hospitals at the CQC, said the trust has “a lot of work to do” to reduce pressures on the departments.
“When we visited the emergency departments at Pilgrim Hospital and Lincoln County Hospital, we saw several areas where improvements must be made, this included the requirement for urgent actions to be taken at Pilgrim Hospital,” he said.
Boston Pilgrim Hospital. Picture: Steve Smailes
“Ambulance handover delays remained a challenge, with some patients experiencing delays of more than 100 minutes from arrival by ambulance to being handed over to trust staff for commencement of care and treatment.
“Patient flow must be coordinated across the whole emergency care pathway to ensure patients receive care and treatment in a timely way.
“The A&E department at Pilgrim Hospital was overcrowded and too small for the number of patients attending and leaders lacked the skills to run the service effectively.
“This impacted on how patient flow could be managed. It also resulted in patients being treated in corridors or the central space of the department and having their dignity compromised.”
Andrew Morgan, chief executive for ULHT, said the trust was making significant efforts to improve its emergency care.
Andrew Morgan (second from right), chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust.
“Following the release of the latest CQC inspection report into the emergency departments at Lincoln County Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, we would firstly like to apologise,” he said.
“We recognise that the level of care provided, and the experience of our patients, has fallen short of what we, and our patients, would expect.
“We would like to reassure our patients that we have been making significant efforts to improve the staffing, systems and processes in the departments to ensure that we can provide the best quality emergency care to the people of Lincolnshire.
“Whilst the report acknowledges the amount of pressure that both departments have been under over the last few months, it unfortunately identifies a number of areas where inspectors felt that significant improvements need to be made.
Lincoln County Hospital. Picture: Steve Smailes.
“We know the challenges we face in relation to the lack of space in the departments, recruitment, our reliance on bank and agency staff, delays in ambulance handovers and seeing and treating patients in a timely manner.
“It is also clear that we need to focus on leadership, staff training and competencies, staff engagement and addressing workforce inequalities going forward.”
Lincolnshire’s A&Es under pressure
Emergency departments in Lincolnshire have come under “significant pressure” in recent months.
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