THE BOSS of the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow has responded to a recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) report that made a number of criticisms of the hospital.

A full statement is below. On Wednesday afternoon, we interviewed Lance McCarthy and asked a number of questions relating to the recent inspection.

The trust has been rated as “requires improvement” overall, with the hospital’s emergency department rated “inadequate”.

Lance McCarthy, chief executive, The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, said:

“I am very proud of all our teams for their continued hard work and commitment to patient care, and proud of how they have each continued to make a difference to our patients despite the unprecedented demand and the enormous pressures of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The response to these pressures by our people has been amazing.

“I am pleased our CQC colleagues fully recognised the focus of all of our people on our patients’ needs and that they felt respected, supported and valued by each other; and that this is reflected in the inspectors’ rating Caring as Good.

“We know that we need to continue to improve all our services and that we are on an ongoing journey of improvement and have the commitment of our people to make it better. I am confident that we have the fantastic people we need to do this. 

“Our urgent and emergency; medicine and maternity teams continue to strive to provide excellent care for patients. All three teams have already put in place improvements following the inspection in addition to managing the significant increase in demand from our local population for those services.

“Patients are, of course, at the heart of everything we do, and I want to thank them for their ongoing support and understanding throughout the pandemic. We are proud to care for our patients and to make sure that we also care for the health and wellbeing of our people too.”