Queen Mary's Hospital

Updated 18 December 2019

Queen Mary’s Hospital (QMH) provides services for adults and children and young people. The hospital offers more than 60 services, which are provided by St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and other NHS trusts.

Services provided by Queen Mary’s Hospital include outpatients (adults and children and young people), community inpatients, neurorehabilitation, limb fitting, burns dressing and dermatology, a day case unit which offers diagnostic service for endoscopy and urology. There are 88 inpatient beds and 10 day case beds.

There are two inpatient wards which provide sub-acute care, treatment and rehabilitation for older people and rehabilitation and support for adults who have had limb amputations.

The majority of services are provided on weekdays only with the inpatient wards open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In 2018/19, Queen Mary’s Hospital had 17,063 attendances, 585 admissions and 89,337 outpatient attendances.

Updated 18 December 2019

Our rating of the service stayed the same. We rated it as requires improvement because:

• Leaders did not run services well using reliable information systems and did not always support staff to develop their skills. The leadership team were not clear of who had overall responsibility and oversight of surgery at Queen Mary’s Hospital. Senior staff in the surgery department at Queen Mary’s Hospital relied on the general manager for outpatients to send them performance data as they did not have access to the new electronic system.
• The service did not always manage learning from incidents well. Staff did not always collect safety information and use it to improve the service.
• Managers did not always monitor the effectiveness of the service. Key services were not available seven days a week.
• The service did not always provide care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence-based practice.
• At the time of inspection, surgery at Queen Mary’s Hospital was not reporting its RTT position.

However:

• The service controlled infection risk well. Staff used equipment and control measures to protect patients, themselves and others from infection.
• During the previous inspection, staff were not fully complaint with the World Health Organisation (WHO) surgical safety checklist. However, on this inspection we did observe staff following the checklist.
• Staff cared for patients with compassion. Feedback from patients confirmed that staff treated them well and with kindness.
• Staff mostly felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care.

Updated 19 July 2018

• The service was not always responsive to patients needs and was not recording waiting times or reporting referral to treatment times (RTTs). There was a plan for the trust to start reporting RTTs in January 2019.
• There was a poor general understanding and implementation of the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
• Staff felt senior leadership was not always visible, as some leaders were based at the St George’s site and did not visit the Queen Mary’s site often.
• The paediatric clinic did not have a separate children’s area and this had not been included in their risk register.
• Waiting times for appointments for patients were long and they were not always informed by staff of the delay.
• Many of the problems faced were due to poor IT systems. The new IT system was due to be fully implemented in 18 months to help resolve these issues.
• The ‘did not attend’ rate for the trust’s outpatients service at Queen Mary's Hospital was higher than the England average.

However:

• The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance.
• Patients were treated with kindness and compassion and felt involved in their decision making processes.

Updated 18 December 2019

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as requires improvement because:

• Leaders did not run services well using reliable information systems and did not always support staff to develop their skills. The leadership team were not clear of who had overall responsibility and oversight of surgery at Queen Mary’s Hospital. Senior staff in the surgery department at Queen Mary’s Hospital relied on the general manager for outpatients to send them performance data as they did not have access to the new electronic system.
• The service did not always manage learning from incidents well. Staff did not always collect safety information and use it to improve the service.
• Managers did not always monitor the effectiveness of the service. Key services were not available seven days a week.
• The service did not always provide care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence-based practice.
• At the time of inspection, surgery at Queen Mary’s Hospital was not reporting its RTT position.

However:

• The service controlled infection risk well. Staff used equipment and control measures to protect patients, themselves and others from infection.
• During the previous inspection, staff were not fully complaint with the World Health Organisation (WHO) surgical safety checklist. However, on this inspection we did observe staff following the checklist.
• Staff cared for patients with compassion. Feedback from patients confirmed that staff treated them well and with kindness.
• Staff mostly felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care.