THE Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust received recognition today of their ongoing improvements in the quality of care they provide for their 350,000 residents, with improved quality ratings awarded by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The ratings follow an inspection of six of the core services across the trust in March and April (2019).

The Trust received an Outstanding rating for caring for children and young people which has made their overall rating Good. Five of the six core services that were inspected in March and April have at least one area that has improved, including surgery whose overall rating also improves to Good. Our responsiveness domain improved most, followed by the well-led domain, with at least one improvement in every domain.

The overall quality rating for the trust remains the same; Requires Improvement. However, they received an overall rating of Good for both the well-led assessment and also for our Use of Resources assessment with 72% of our scorecard for all services now rated as Good or Outstanding.

Lance McCarthy, chief executive, The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, said: “I am pleased that the CQC has recognised the hard work and commitment of all of our people to providing high quality care for our patients.

“We have continued to make significant improvements to the quality of care we provide since we came out of quality special measures in March 2018. I am particularly delighted that our children and young people teams have been rated as Outstanding for Caring.

“We have an established quality improvement plan that is managed across all our services, both clinical and support and professional services, as we continue our drive towards achieving our vision of providing outstanding healthcare to our community.”

Another area that the team of inspectors all commented positively on was how friendly and welcoming everyone at the hospital was and this was reflected in a tangible improvement in the overall culture and experience of being at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

PAHT now has five of its eight core services rated as Good along with Good ratings for our well-led assessment and also for our use of resources; a key measure in relation to the efficiency of the way the trust is managed across its services.

Some of the positive comments from the CQC, detailed in the report, include:
• Staff cared for patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took
account of their individual needs.
• Staff felt respected, supported and valued. The trust promoted equality and diversity in daily work and
provided opportunities for career development. There was an open culture where patients, their families and
staff could raise concerns without fear.
• Our rating of caring improved. We rated it as outstanding because staff treated children, young people and
their families with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their
individual needs.
• All staff were committed to continually learning and improving services.
• Senior leaders were committed to improving services by learning from when things went well and when they
went wrong, promoting learning and empowering staff to innovate.
• Patients were positive about the care and treatment they received and felt involved in decision making.
• Managers across the trust promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff, creating a sense of
common purpose based on shared values.

Lance McCarthy continued: “The feedback from the CQC inspectors on areas that need further improvement reflects actions that we already have in place and changes that we are making. Nationally, the NHS is experiencing unprecedented demands on its services and it is a credit to the teams at PAHT that, as they work hard every day to meet these demands and provide our patients with the best experience of care, we continue to see improvements in the quality rating for our care.”

Steve Clark, chair, joined Lance McCarthy in thanking staff for their commitment to patients and also for the care they show to each other.

“We have achieved a lot and have more to do to make sure that our ratings continue to improve. We thank and pay tribute to the amazing people at PAHT for their focus and energy to ensuring their hard work and commitment to patient care is reflected in how we are rated and considered by the people we care for.”