Agenda item

Debra Hickman – Deputy Chief Nurse, The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWHT), presented an update on progress against priorities detailed in the Quality Accounts 2017/18 report.

The Deputy Chief Nurse advised the panel that the hospital had a recent visit from the Care Quality Commission who inspected the Urgent Care Centre, receiving a ‘good’ rating.

Jeremy Vanes, Chair (RWHT) advised the panel that the hospital agreed to be filmed for the tv series Junior Doctors. The hospital has no editorial control over filming but considered there were real benefits to being involved in the programme. The Chair advised the panel that progress is being made to recruit two non- executive directors.

The Deputy Chief Nurse advised the panel that the priorities for the hospital have remained the same for two years. The issue of staffing levels is a significant priority but progress was being made. The hospital has placed significant attention on recruiting and retaining staff with the required skills and experience. The action plans linked to the priorities are regularly audited. The Deputy Chief Nurse made the comments about progress against priorities.

Priority 1: Nurse staffing levels

The Deputy Chief Nurse commented that reducing the number of nursing vacancies remains a challenge for the hospital. The hospital arranged a series of overseas trips in the past to find nurses but have not done so recently given national changes to requirements for registration. The hospital wants to continue to encourage local recruitment and have adopted different approaches to finding replacement staff.

The Deputy Chief Nurse commented that the issue of Brexit cannot be evidenced as impacting on recruitment for the hospital. However, there is evidence of European recruits leaving the hospital to pursue opportunities further south of the country. The Deputy Chief Nurse reported that the hospital has made significant impact on improving attendance at work following a review of the approach to managing sickness.

Priority 2: Safer Care

The Deputy Chief Nurse advised the panel that 95% is the national target benchmark for ‘harm free’ care. This is a point prevalence measure identifying prevalence of pressure injuries, falls, medication and infections associated with urinary catheters at a given point in time. The panel were advised of work that is being done nationally to reduce the number of patient falls. The Deputy Chief Nurse advised the panel of the work done to identify high risk patients and provide the right interventions to support patients; however this is a challenge at night time when less staff are available to observe patients at risk of falls.

The panel queried the reasons for the high number of reported medication incidents. The Chair explained that the procedures for prescribing medicines are clear but are not followed and the challenge for the hospital is understanding the reasons for this. The Deputy Chief Nurse commented on a move to electronic prescribing as way forward for reducing the number of incidents. In addition, work is being done to identify ‘hot spot’ areas across the hospital where more action is needed.

Priority 3: Patient Experience and Satisfaction

The Deputy Chief Nurse advised the panel of the analysis of complaints and the Friends and Family Test (FFT). The Deputy Chief Nurse commented that the FFT is a “blunt’ measure of the performance of the hospital and work is being done to get a more rounded view of what the public think about the quality of the services provided. The panel commented that there was shared concern about customer feedback as experience suggests that two groups of people will comment – those people who are very angry or upset about the service and those people who are very happy about the service – it was important to get a representative sample of views to be able to judge the performance of the hospital.

The panel welcomed the report.

Resolved:

            The panel agreed to note the progress towards meeting the RWHT priorities.

The meeting closed at 3.30pm