Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Updated 14 May 2020

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was formed in 2001 and gained Foundation Trust status in 2007.Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides acute healthcare services for 420,000 people across Mansfield, Ashfield, Newark, Sherwood and parts of Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

The trust provides general and acute hospital care across three hospital sites; King’s Mill Hospital, Newark Hospital and Mansfield Community Hospital. In addition, some outpatients’ services are run from Ashfield Community Health Village.

Updated 14 May 2020

Our rating of the trust stayed the same. We rated it as good because:

We rated safe, effective, responsive and well led as good and caring as outstanding for core services, the trusts well led was rated as good. We rated eight of the trust services as good and one, which was end of life care at Newark hospital as requires improvement overall.

We rated well led for the trust as good overall.

During this inspection, we did not inspect, urgent and emergency care, medical care including older people’s care service, maternity services, outpatients, diagnostic imaging, or community inpatient care.

The ratings we published following the previous inspections are part of the overall rating awarded to the trust this time.

Updated 14 May 2020

Updated 14 May 2020

Updated 15 August 2018

Our rating of this service improved. We rated it as good because:

• There were multiple examples of how staff exceeded patient expectations and provided individualised, compassionate care that significantly improved individual experiences.
• There had been demonstrable, substantial improvements in the areas we previously found for improvement that were under each ward team’s control. This included stabilised leadership, improvements in training and induction and a reduction in the use of agency staff.
• All areas of the patient-led assessment of the care environment in 2017 demonstrated improvements from the previous year.
• Audit and benchmarking programmes had been implemented to improve how the hospital evidenced patient outcomes.
• Improvements in discharge coordination were being led by a complex discharge specialist and there was evidence of consistent, embedded multidisciplinary liaison to improve patient care.
• Rehabilitation was at the heart of care and treatment in the hospital and staff, both clinical and non-clinical, had taken on additional training to be able to provide extended roles.
• Services and ward environments were structured to facilitate socialisation amongst patients, reduce the risk of isolation and promote a welcoming environment for relatives.
• Opportunities for staff progression and development had significantly improved and a dedicated clinical nurse educator was leading a substantial education programme for trainee nurse associates.

However:

• At our last inspection in July 2016 we found therapies teams were unable to provide services outside of core Monday to Friday hours. This remained the case and patients admitted at weekends had limited access to care planning and therapies exercises. Some nursing staff had completed training to provide basic interim therapies assessments for patients.
• Local governance processes worked well but there was limited evidence that some of the overarching governance strategies at a trust level had a positive impact. This included the morbidity and mortality arrangements and the use of the divisional risk register.
• The Chatsworth ward therapies team were unable to carry out audits or research due to restrictions on their capacity.