Woodland Hospital

Updated 28 January 2019

Woodland Hospital is operated by Ramsay Healthcare UK Operations Ltd. The hospital opened in 1990. It is a private hospital in Kettering, Northamptonshire. The hospital primarily serves the communities of Northamptonshire. It also accepts patient referrals from outside this area.

Woodland Hospital is a purpose-built hospital over three floors. Since opening in 1990, there have been many changes, including major developments in 2013 and 2018. The latest development increased the number of theatres and introduced a purpose-built day case unit, a purpose-built MRI scanning room and an endoscopy unit.

The outpatient department comprises 12 consulting rooms and two minor treatment rooms on the ground level. Adjacent to the main outpatient department is the imaging department which comprises of an x-ray room, ultrasound facility and MRI suite. There is a mobile computerised tomography unit (CT) which visits the site regularly, managed by Ramsay Diagnostic services. In addition to outpatients and imaging services, there is a physiotherapy department, which has a gymnasium and four treatment rooms. These are in a separate building to the main outpatient department and accessed directly from the main carpark.

There is a small pharmacy department providing services for both inpatients and outpatients.

Clinical inpatient areas consist of an inpatient ward which has 20 patient rooms and a two-bedded room for patients requiring additional observation. The day case unit has 12-day case pods, and seven beds.

The theatre department consists of four main theatres with laminar flow, plus an endoscopy unit which holds Joint Advisory Group (JAG) accreditation.

The hospital undertakes a range of surgical procedures and provides outpatient consultations for adults. The hospital does not provide services for children.

At the time of the inspection, a new registered manager had recently been appointed and was registered with the CQC in October 2018.

There were 112 consultants working under practising privileges; and two anaesthetists employed by the hospital. There were 46.7 WTE nursing and midwifery staff and 26.5 operating department and health care assistant staff across all departments. In addition, there were 68.7 health professionals, administrative and clerical and support staff who were shared across the hospital services and who were employed by the hospital.

The hospital is managed by Ramsay Healthcare UK Operations Ltd and is part of a network of over 30 hospitals and day surgery facilities and two neurological rehabilitation homes, across England.

The hospital provides care for private patients whose care and treatment are either paid for by their insurance companies or are self-funding. Some patients who are funded through the NHS referral system can also be treated at Woodland Hospital. NHS patients make up approximately 80% of the hospital activity.

Updated 28 January 2019

Woodland Hospital is operated by Ramsay Healthcare UK Operations Ltd. The hospital provides surgery, outpatients and diagnostic imaging services. We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out an announced inspection on 24 and 25 October 2018.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The main service provided by this hospital was surgery. Where our findings on surgery – for example, management arrangements – also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery service report.

Services we rate

Our rating of this hospital improved. We rated it as Good overall.

• The hospital provided staff with appropriate training to enable them to complete their roles and responsibilities.
• The hospital premises were clean and well maintained. Services managed infection control risks well. When we escalated concerns relating to hand washing, the hospital responded immediately, implementing additional training and audits to improve practice.
• Equipment was well maintained and replaced as necessary.
• There were systems in place to support staff to assess patients’ risks to ensure the safe provision of care and treatment.
• The service managed staffing effectively and services always had enough staff with the appropriate skills, experience and training to keep patients safe and to meet their care needs.
• Medicines were stored, prescribed and managed safely.
• Safety incidents were managed using an effective system. There were processes in place to ensure shared learning.
• Staff were able to identify potential harm to patients and understood how to protect them from abuse. Services knew how to escalate concerns.
• The hospital provided staff with policies, protocols and procedures which were based on national guidance.
• Staff ensured that patients were provided with adequate food and hydration, offering varied diets to meet nutritional or religious preferences.
• Staff competency was assured through monitoring and regular appraisals.

• Staff worked together as a team to benefit patients. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals supported each other to provide good care.
• Patients were supported to make decisions and were kept informed of treatment options. Staff treated patients with dignity and respect.
• Services were planned to meet the needs of the patients, with additional support available for patients who had additional needs.
• Services provided by the hospital were flexible to meet the needs of patients, enabling additional clinics, appointments or out of-hour services as able. Waiting times from treatment and arrangements to admit, treat and discharge patients were in line with good practice.
• Complaints were taken seriously, with concerns being investigated and responses made within agreed timescales. Staff shared learning from complaints and encouraged patients to identify areas for improvement.
• Managers and leaders were appropriately skilled and knowledgeable to manage teams and services. Leaders were accessible and respected by staff.
• Managers promoted a positive culture which supported and valued staff, creating a sense of common purpose based on shared values.
• There was a hospital vision and strategy which was developed in collaboration with the clinical team and reflected a focus on patients and staff.
• The service had processes in place to monitor performance and used these to encourage staff to provide high standards of clinical care and treatment.

We found the following areas for improvement:

• There were inconsistencies with patient records. Risk assessments were not always completed within surgical services and outpatient notes lacked details of actions taken and were not always signed and dated.
• Locally, some managers did not have oversight of equipment used within their departments/clinical areas.
• Outpatient services did not routinely monitor the effectiveness of care and treatment.
• There were inconsistencies in the documentation of consent for minor operations within outpatients.

• Complaints’ files did not always reflect actions taken to resolve concerns raised.
• There was not always effective oversight of some aspects of risk, safety and governance. Risk registers did not always accurately reflect risks identified by staff.
• Staff in outpatients did not always have oversight of performance, and there was no evidence to suggest that performance data was shared with teams.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We issued the provider with one requirement notice. Details are at the end of the report.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 28 January 2019

Updated 28 January 2019

We rated this service as good because it was caring, responsive, and well-led, although it requires improvement for being safe. Effective is not rated.

Updated 28 January 2019

Surgery was the main activity of the hospital. Where our findings on surgery also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery section.

We rated this service as good because it was well led, safe, effective, caring and responsive.