PRESS RELEASE: CQC downgrades local NHS Trust

News - 15 May 2023

CQC downgrades local NHS Trust but care remains “outstanding”
Hospital corridor

1. A new CQC report has downgraded University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust to “requires improvement”

2. The report recognises that patient care delivered across the Trust is “outstanding”.

3. A number of hospitals operated by the Trust have been rated as “outstanding” or “good” overall.

4. In terms of being well-led, the CQC has rated the Trust as “inadequate”.

On Friday 12th May, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published its long-awaited report into University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (UHSx). The report follows an inspection carried out seven months ago which focussed on how well-led the Trust is which examined the leadership, management and governance of the organisation making sure it is providing high-quality care that's based around individual needs, that it encourages learning and innovation, and that it promotes an open and fair culture. This latest rating, combined with ratings from previous CQC visits carried out over an 18-month period, has lowered the overall rating for the Trust to “requires improvement”. This means CQC does not consider the Trust to be performing as well as it should and that it must improve.

The report provided the following individual ratings to four of the seven hospitals operated by the UHSx Trust across Sussex:

  1. Royal Sussex County Hospital RSCH, (Brighton) rated as “inadequate”. This means that the CQC believes the service is performing badly.
  2. Princess Royal Hospital (PRH, Haywards Heath) rated as “requires improvement”.
  3. St Richards Hospital (Chichester) rated as “outstanding”.
  4. Worthing Hospital rated as “outstanding”.

Alan Boyd, Chief Executive Officer for Healthwatch Brighton and Hove said today:

“This latest CQC rating is clearly disappointing for patients but also all staff who work incredibly hard to ensure that patients receive excellent care. Of particular concern is that services at the Royal Sussex County are not considered to be safe although patients should be reassured that the care offered across the Trust has been rated as “outstanding”. Healthwatch works closely with the senior management team at the Trust and have been reassured by the actions that they have already been put in place to deliver the required improvements. We need to support our Trust as it continues its recovery from COVID-19 and embeds change to deliver improvements and Healthwatch will be there to do this whilst offering critical challenge and championing the patient voice and experience.”

The latest rating is based on the views of 120 staff members who bravely came forward to share their views about the leadership at the Trust. The CQC report highlights that all staff need to feel supported to carry out their jobs and be listened to. In December, just 49% of staff felt confident about being able to speak out but by March this year, this had risen to 58% following actions taken by the Trust.

The inspection follows the merger of two Trusts in 2021 to form the 7th largest acute Trust in the county, during the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of poor ratings since 2021 clearly reflect the substantial change that is still needed and also that recovery from COVID-19 is ongoing which is acknowledged in the CQC report “it is also important to acknowledge the challenges the trust faced in the context of both system and national challenges. These included staff shortages, COVID-19 absence, long-term sickness and absence, an increased number of more acutely unwell patients requiring care...” (page 20 of the CQC report).

The CQC reported the following positive findings:

  1. That the Trust has a clear improvement strategy.
  2. That senior leaders hold relevant experience, capacity and capability to lead effectively.
  3. That the Trust regularly receives praise from patients and high scores from surveys.

The CQC report identified the following concerns:

  1. That the leadership team are not clearly visible.
  2. That support for staff needs to be improved.
  3. That staff need to be supported to speak up.

The future

Since these series of CQC visits, dating back more than 18 months, Healthwatch is aware that the Trust has:

  1. recruited staff to the key area of maternity services
  2. commissioned external reviews of its surgical services
  3. effectively begun to reduce the list of longest waiters, and
  4. Is improving performance for cancer diagnoses.

This is alongside a planned £48 million investment into the existing Emergency Department at RSCH and the opening the new multi-million pound Louisa Martindale building in Brighton. This year, the Trust also received excellent results in a national maternity survey, ranking it 9th out of 121 trusts for good patient experience.

Healthwatch will continue to support our hospital through our work putting patients at the heart of care. For example, with the full support of our Trust, in May we carried out an Enter and View of our local maternity services alongside colleagues from Maternity Voices Partnership and found these were caring, well-organised and safe. A number of patients we spoke to told us their experiences had been “amazing” but there was a timely reminder for staff to communicate effectively with patients at all times.

Healthwatch also attends regular meetings with senior Trust staff, including one where we discuss patient experiences of care and services. Related to this, the CQC report states:

“The ongoing engagement work with Healthwatch meant there was a useful external and independent patient experience review process that could be used as a ‘sense check’ against the trust’s own data”. (page 22 of the report)

- End of press release -

For media enquiries

Healthwatch Brighton and Hove
Alan Boyd, Chief Executive Officer, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove alan@healthwatchbrightonandhove.co.uk
07952 450656

Geoffrey Bowden, Chair Healthwatch Brighton and Hove
chair@healthwatchbrightonandhove.co.uk
07958 682683

office@healthwatchbrightonandhove.co.uk

Healthwatch East Sussex
Veronica Kirwan, Executive Director, Healthwatch East Sussex
veronica.kirwan@escv.org.uk
07794 100 291 / 01323 403590

enquiries@healthwatcheastsussex.co.uk

Healthwatch West Sussex
Jo Tuck, Volunteering Lead & Deputy Manager
jo.tuck@healthwatchwestsussex.co.uk 
0300 012 0122 / 07970 424750

helpdesk@healthwatchwestsussex.co.uk