Hospital "failed to meet key standards"

Management at great Western Hospital promise to make changes

THE GREAT Western Hospital, Swindon, has failed to meet two key standards, according to health watchdogs.

A report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that the hospital needed to improve to protect patients from unsafe treatment during surgery.

It also said improved monitoring of patients' fluid balance was needed to better protect them from dehydration.

The CQC undertook the review to check whether improvements had been made to three essential standards it was concerned about following previous inspections.

It also said that further improvements were needed in the areas of care and welfare of patients, and in meeting nutritional needs.

The chief executive at Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Nerissa Vaughan, said: "We take inspections by the CQC very seriously and use their findings as an opportunity to explore ways we can improve the care we provide.

"At the Great Western Hospital our staff see and treat over 400,000 people a year providing them with very good, personal care. We know from the feedback we receive that the vast majority of patients have a positive experience but we know there will always be areas where we need to focus to ensure patients are getting the best care possible.”

She added: "As the CQC inspections are a snapshot of the way we provide care on a particular day, it cannot represent the entirety of what we do, so we don't just rely on these inspections to tell us how we are doing. We also use patient feedback and a vast range of quality measures to understand how we provide care and from that what we can do differently in the future.

"We are now in the process of producing an action plan addressing the points raised by the CQC and its progress will be monitored by the trust board to ensure we have covered all of the key issues."