County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust has received a ‘Good’ rating from the Care Quality Commission following its latest inspection.
A team of inspectors visited the Trust’s two main hospital sites, University Hospital of North Durham and Darlington Memorial Hospital between 2nd and 4th July and carried out an assessment of end of life care, urgent and emergency care and surgery.
The CQC report, which is published today (Tuesday 3 December) highlights that the Trust, which has over two million patient contacts a year, has successfully addressed areas for improvement raised two years ago. It has now moved from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’ and the inspectors found many areas of excellent practice.
Sue Jacques, Chief Executive of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are extremely pleased to receive a good rating from the CQC which really recognises the tremendous effort and commitment of our workforce in continually driving through improvements in services for our patients and local populations.
“This is a fantastic achievement for everyone working for the Trust, our partners and our local populations. We are on a journey to make sure we have great people delivering safe, compassionate and joined-up care. We have a clear strategic direction and are taking forward plans to further transform our services. Our organisational values ensure that we place patients at the heart of all that we do and this is clearly visible in the report. In particular, the report praises our staff for treating patients with compassion and kindness, respecting their privacy and dignity, and taking account of their individual needs.
“We are particularly pleased that this inspection included end of life services, which had not been assessed since 2015, and that the services have been rated as outstanding. This is a testament to the work which has taken place over the last four years and the progress we have made.”
The report also included positive commentary on the leadership of the Trust through the well-led inspection. Highlighting the improving culture of the organisation and the delivery of high quality patient services, with a clear commitment to continuous improvement across the organisation. And, the Trust was cited as engaging more proactively with patients, staff, the public and local organisations to plan and manage services in a collaborative way.
The CQC inspection rates care under five domains; Caring, Safe, Well-Led, Effective and Responsive. The Trust received a good rating overall, with ‘good’ in caring, effective and responsive, with a ‘requires improvement’ rating remaining for safe.
Sue Jacques, continued: “Of course, we recognise that we still have work to do to achieve the full extent of our Right First Time, Every Time vision for the future and that there are areas which require further focus. Like the NHS nationally, we are seeing demand for our services continue to grow, particularly in our emergency and unscheduled care services and our challenge is to make sure that we can deliver safe, quality care while also managing these challenges.
“However, we believe that with our talented workforce and by working together with our partners and local populations we will meet these challenges and continue to go from strength to strength. I’m immensely proud of our dedicated staff and the care they provide to patients every day.”
