healthmedicinet

• 11 of the 14 hospital trusts investigated put into ‘special measures’
• Six of the 11 are ‘foundation’ trusts – a coveted status brought in under Labour that was meant to reward the best-performing hospitals
  

By
Sophie Borland and Daniel Martin

PUBLISHED:

17:08 EST, 16 July 2013

|

UPDATED:

17:14 EST, 16 July 2013

Eleven of the 14 hospital trusts investigated by Sir Bruce Keogh have been put into ‘special measures’ and hit squads will be sent in to help them improve care, Jeremy Hunt announced yesterday.

These experts may decide to sack chief executives and other top managers if they think they are not up to scratch – although officials will be handed a stay of execution to see if they can turn their hospitals around.

The 11 ‘mediocre’ NHS trusts in special measures are: North Cumbria; Northern Lincolnshire and Goole; Tameside; United Lincolnshire; Basildon and Thurrock, Essex; Burton, Staffordshire; East Lancashire; George Eliot, Nuneaton, Warwickshire; Sherwood Forest; Buckinghamshire; and Medway, Kent.

Victim: Terry Day, 35, pictured with fiancee Samantha Blythe, was mistaken for a drunk by hospital staff in Basildon, Essex, when in fact he had a fatal brain tumour

Three other trusts – based in Blackpool, Colchester and Dudley – will not be put into special measures and have been given the chance to improve care themselves.

Six of the 11 going into special measures are ‘foundation’ trusts – a coveted status brought in under Labour which was meant to reward the best-performing hospitals.

They are: Northern Lincolnshire and Goole, Tameside, Basildon and Thurrock, Burton, Sherwood Forest and Medway.

Sir Bruce said: ‘Mediocrity is simply not good enough and, based on the findings from this review I have set out an achievable ambition which will help these hospitals improve dramatically over the next two years.’ Mr Hunt said that 11 of the trusts would be put into ‘special measures’ for ‘fundamental breaches of care’.

He told MPs: ‘No statistics are perfect but mortality rates suggest that since 2005 thousands more people may have died that would normally be expected at the 14 trusts reviewed.’

BASILDON THURROCK

• 1,607 ‘excess deaths’
• Patients waiting for 14 hours in casualty
• Poor hygiene with building work continuing in the cardiothoracic unit which cares for patients with heart and lung problems
• Junior doctors undertaking 19 hour shifts
• One nurse left in charge of ten patients overnight

Victims
included Terry Day, 35, who died after nurses ignored the fact that he
had a brain tumour, instead believing he was just ‘a drunk’. Lucy
Anderson, 30, lost her unborn baby after she was refused a scan because
of a lack of staff. And disabled Tina Papalabropoulos, 23, died from
pneumonia after doctors missed numerous chances to save her life.

Double tragedy Lucy Anderson (left) lost her unborn baby after she was refused a scan, while Tina Papalabropoulos died from pneumonia after a series of blunders

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE  

• 531 ‘excess deaths’
• Junior doctors left in charge of up to 250 patients at weekends
• Doctors and nurses saying workloads ‘frightening’, ‘unsafe’ and ‘unmanageable’
• Patients on dementia wards not fed properly or given enough water
• One patient transferred between two hospitals eight times because of staffing shortages

BURTON

• 700 ‘excess deaths’
• Staff in some wards had to work 12 days in a row with others doing 14-hour shifts
• Healthcare assistants performing tasks which should be done by qualified nurses such as blood observations
• Drugs and fluids found to be out of date and equipment missing on resuscitation trolleys
• Nurses
  and doctors unable to speak English with patients having to ask same
  question time and again because they were not understood.

EAST LANCASHIRE

• 655 ‘excess deaths’
• Dangerously high level of stillborn babies – eight in March 2013 – but this was never investigated by bosses
• Patients sent home too soon and having to be admitted to hospital days later
• Complaints not dealt with compassionately
• Shortage of AE doctors and midwives

Widow Betty Dunn died from the superbug C. Diff after she was admitted with a routine stomach bug

By numbers: NHS in the labour years

GEORGE ELIOT

• 985 ‘excess deaths’
• One patient had not seen consultant for ten days
• Patients had to use lavatories with doors left open
• Patients shunted around hospitals between wards
• Nurses not properly trained to treat bedsores with patients left in crippling pain

MEDWAY

• 711 ‘excess deaths’
• Junior doctors left on their own looking after critically ill patients on ‘high dependency’ wards
• Staffing levels ‘unsafe’ in AE and on a number of other wards caring for seriously ill patients

NORTH CUMBRIA

• 672 ‘excess deaths’
• Dirt and dust ‘ingrained’ on wards and corridors
• Two operating theatres shut down immediately over hygiene concerns with patients at high risk of infections
• Proper cleaning very difficult as wards so cluttered

N LINCS GOOLE

• 953 ‘excess deaths’
• Receptionists deciding how quickly patients are seen in AE
• Patients looked after by paramedics in back of ambulance for nearly two hours because AE too busy
• Relatives having to wash and turn p atients over to prevent bedsores due to lack of nurses
• Patients routinely placed in mixed-sex wards particularly following surgery

SHERWOOD FOREST

• 819 ‘excess deaths’
• Patients left on trolleys in a matron’s office because of lack of beds
• Relatives waiting three years for their complaints to be answered
• Patients in AE told to tell receptionist – not doctor – if they have chest pain, if not they go to back of queue

TAMESIDE

• 833 ‘excess deaths’
• Senior nurses left instead of doctors in charge of some wards overnight
• Patients shunted from ward to ward up to four times during their stay just to make room
• One nurse left to look after 15 patients overnight

Victims included Betty Dunn, 79, who was admitted with a routine stomach problem but died from the superbug Clostridium difficile six weeks later after a catalogue of medical blunders.

UNITED LINCS

• 1,530 ‘excess deaths’
• Doctors and nurses did not think patient care was the top priority
• Junior doctors with less than a year’s experience left in charge overnight
• Patients felt scared to complain in case it jeopardised their care

The three trusts which had high death rates but which will not be placed in special measures are:

DUDLEY

• 1,234 ‘excess deaths’
• Doctors, nurses and other staff having to be reminded to wash their hands
• Vital machines to help patients breathe found not to be working on some wards

COLCHESTER

• 723 ‘excess deaths’
• Patients complaining wards too cold, food poor and staff insensitive at breaking bad news.
• Shortage of doctors and nurses out of hours.

BLACKPOOL

• 1,367 ‘excess deaths’
• No consultants working on stroke wards at weekends
• Inspectors found two nurses looking after 25 patients on a ‘debris-strewn’ ward. No stroke consultant available at weekend.
• Relatives having to feed patients because nurses are too busy

The AE receptionists who decide who should be treated: Shortage of nurses mean RECEPTIONISTS are having to decide who should be treated

Receptionists are deciding how swiftly patients are seen in AE because of an extraordinary shortage of nurses, according to the report.

The administrative staff are making decisions which would normally be taken by taken by medical practitioners.

Ruth May, nurse director for NHS Midlands and East, said: ‘In some hospitals, in some ward areas, there was inadequate staffing – we heard from patients about call bells going off for longer periods than they should have been. I held the hand of a patient – just to comfort them – because the nurses did not have sufficient time to do that.

The King’s Mill Centre in Nottinghamshire which is part of the Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust which has been under review by NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt made a statement about the damning report

‘I observed some aspects of care that did lack compassion. I would argue that we saw that at the same time as seeing poor levels of staffing.’

The report found nursing shortages at all 14 organisations – particularly at nights and weekends – with some nurses left on their own in charge of 15 patients.

Inspectors also found receptionists deciding how quickly patients are seen in AE at Sherwood Forest Hospitals. Patients are told to tell staff on the front desk if they have chest pain otherwise they join the back of the queue.

The inspectors found a queue of eight patients waiting to be assessed by a secretary at the casualty unit at Princess Diana hospital in Grimsby, part of the United Lincolnshire and Goole NHS trust.

Earlier this year a major study found that patients are 10 per cent more likely to die if there are not enough nurses on wards as they are more likely to suffer complications.

Yet official figures show that the numbers of nurses in the NHS has increased by a third since 1997 – when Labour came to power – up from 261,000 to 350,000 today.

Healthcare experts and unions argue that more nurses are needed on the wards compared to several decades ago as higher numbers of patients in hospital are elderly and require dedicated care.

But the Royal College of Nursing is concerned that the Government has begun slashing nurses’ posts and claims that 6,000 have been lost since 2010.

Yesterday the RCN and Unison demanded that the NHS impose compulsory safe staffing levels with minimum numbers of nurses on each wards.

Dr Peter Carter, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: ‘There’s an undeniable link between nurse staffing levels and patient mortality and we can’t keep failing to address this issue.’

LABOURS’ NHS PLEDGES… AND SERIAL FAILURES

1997: Labour wins the election and takes charge of an NHS budget of just over £33billion. At first, it sticks to Tory spending limits.

2000: Tony Blair goes on Breakfast with Frost to announce plans to increase NHS spending to bring it up to the European average, without warning Gordon Brown

2000: Alan Milburn’s NHS plan imposes targets to reduce waiting lists, later blamed for prompting managers to ignore care standards. He also says thousands more nurses will be trained

2001: Gordon Brown unveils five-year spending plan to bring the NHS budget up to European levels by 2008

2002: An independent review by ex-NatWest boss Derek Wanless calls for a huge increase in NHS spending. Brown responds with a 1p rise in National Insurance.

2003: But much of the money goes towards a top-down reorganisation of the NHS, such as the formation of foundation trusts and the replacement of health authorities with primary care trusts. Thousands more managers employed.

2004: Much of the extra money goes not to patients but towards extra pay for GPs and consultants, who see their pay soar at the same time as opting out of responsibility for out-of-hours care.

2006: Despite all the billions, a third of trusts face severe financial problems. Many are forced to close wards and cut staff

2007: First of a series of scandals as it emerges that 90 patients died from C. Diff at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust – because managers were obsessed with targets.

2009: Mid Staffs scandal emerges: up to 1,200 die on filthy and short-staffed wards. Health Secretary Andy Burnham orders an investigation but refuses to hold a full public inquiry.

2010: Labour loses the election, spending almost £100billion annually on the NHS – almost triple the level when it took over.

 

Share or comment on this article

• Nancy Grace’s Zimmerman ‘churros’ jibe

• WARNING GRAPHIC: Three gored in Pamplona’s Running of the…

• Big dog VERY unsure about tiny kitten

• Korean woman is filmed being abused in nightclub by…

• News station tricked into reading out fake names

• Women carrying children brawl in Chuck E Cheese

• Perp-walk: Feared Zetas drug lord faces the cameras

• North Korean missiles seized in Panama

• Viral video of terrifying photo booth prank

• ‘It was surreal’: Dave Matthew hitches a ride with stunned…

• VIDEO: One second every day of newborn’s first year

• Mexico captures infamous Zetas druglord Z-40

• Watch as Nancy Grace complains that George Zimmerman, an…

• Trayvoning, the latest disturbing social media trend…

• From his $1.3m mansion to a 7ft by 10ft cell: The miserable…

• Owner of World Trade Center is trying to sue airlines for…

• Panama’s president tweets pictures of missiles found hidden…

• Boy aged SIX ‘upset at parents’ divorce’ hanged himself…

• Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord who ‘stewed’ his victims…

• Texas town changing nudity laws to make body paint…

• Wimbledon women’s semi-finalist Agnieszka Radwanska is…

• Eric Holder says he wants an end to Stand Your Ground laws…

• Chris Hansen’s bitter ex-mistress hits out at double…

• The bloody day Harry was witness to an horrific war crime:…

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

• 
  
  Newest
• 
  
  Oldest
• 
  
  Best rated
• 
  
  Worst rated

Labour = Bad

– ian , ilford,

So you could only read the headline then?? Do not be so gullible, try to look at the facts. Labour did some very good things for the NHS. They did a lot of bad things too! but actually the rot really set in with the Thatcher governement’s privatisation of some services and attempt to make the NHS into “businesses”. Since then ALL governments have failed us.

–

Jen
,

Cambridge,
17/7/2013 02:23

Report abuse

Would the Hit Squads be private contractors, perchance?

–

jokerhystericalface
,

South London,
17/7/2013 02:20

Report abuse

@
Labour = Bad

– ian, ilford, 16/07/2013 23:14
Tory’s = worse

–

davidickeisright
,

manchester,
17/7/2013 01:02

Report abuse

Andy Burnham please step forward and explain The truth

–

Croque Monsieur
,

Isle of Widget, United Kingdom,
17/7/2013 01:01

Report abuse

Disgusting heads should roll for this

–

davidickeisright
,

manchester,
17/7/2013 01:01

Report abuse

all those conditions in those hospitals sound a million times better than they were in the 80s

–

Pete
,

Liverpool,
17/7/2013 00:59

Report abuse

I trust all the highly paid and highly incompetent people in charge are dismissed…?

–

Baldrick
,

Many places, United Kingdom,
17/7/2013 00:57

Report abuse

Labour, socialist, bs is all about appearances, not performance and reality. NHS will learn from this and cover it up better next round. If you want to survive, from benefits, immigration, health care, or any other standpoint, throw out socialists.

–

Heliflyer
,

Burlington,
17/7/2013 00:47

Report abuse

Why didn’t the unions start complaining under the last government, all in it together I think. Keep quiet and it will go away.

–

bob
,

liverpool,
17/7/2013 00:44

Report abuse

The whole NHS is a disgrace, and the sooner we treat it as such, the sooner it will be mended. Keep all politicians out of it. Consultants. Doctors and Matrons should run it, not these vile inadequate MP’s that we have.

–

Marion
,

Pererenan, Indonesia,
17/7/2013 00:28

Report abuse

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.