THE trust running the county’s hospitals remains in special measures despite improvements in its maternity services.

The latest Care Quality Commission (CQC) report released today (June 5) based on inspections in January and February found an improvement in how Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is run but its overall rating remains at ‘inadequate’ and the privacy of patients being cared for on trolleys in corridors was again mentioned by inspectors.

Chief executive of the trust Michelle McKay said: “There is no doubt that it is unacceptable for people to be cared for in corridors.

“The impact that has on the patient experience as well as family and carers is terrible and it’s absolutely not what we want to see.

“There are two components to what we are doing about that, the first is increasing the acute bed capacity on the Worcester site.

“The other side is making sure we are working with our partners to ensure that people are only coming to the hospital when they need to and that when people do come to our emergency departments that our models of care ensure that they are seen by a senior decision maker quickly so that they get on their journey and we can reduce the time.”

The latest CQC inspections looked at maternity services and children’s and young people services.

The inspection body awarded the trust an overall ‘good’ rating for its maternity services and an improved rating of ‘requires improvement’ for its children’s and young people services.

Mrs McKay said: “It’s fantastic to see the maternity services recognised in this report

“We’re really fortunate to have such a fantastic service that wins a number of national awards.

“[The rating] is an absolute testament to the staff and leadership of that service.”

The inspection also found that the trust needed to improve harm reviews for those waiting for surgery longer than they should be.

Mrs McKay said: “The report is very clear that the areas we most need to focus on are our urgent care and surgery and outpatients.

“Surgery and outpatients is largely around waiting lists and waiting times and people waiting for an excessive amount of time longer than they should be.

“If we continue to improve in some of those areas then we will see some of the overall ratings shift from inadequate to requires improvement and of course that is what we want to see.”

Staff, as they have been in previous reports, were praised for their care and compassion.

Mrs McKay said: “There are many positive comments about the care and the compassion that the staff demonstrate, all day, every day.

“They’re a fantastic group, they work really hard and it’s good when improvement is recognised but it doesn’t mean that improvements cannot still be made.

“We are fortunate to have such a caring and capable group of people working in the trust.”

The trust’s overall ratings remained at the levels of the previous inspection in November 2017 - with ‘safe’ and ‘responsive’ remaining inadequate, ‘effective’ staying at requires improvement and ‘caring’ remaining good.

The hospital trust also announced that it had been awarded £8 million from the Department for Health to help improve bed capacity at Worcestershire Royal Hospital. The government money will help bring another 40 beds to the hospital during the difficult winter period.

Mrs McKay said: “The £8 million will obviously help improve flow. One of the prime reasons we have overcrowding in our emergency departments is that we don’t have enough acute beds for people to go to so of course increasing that will help with flow.”