News

Patients who stay overnight on Kettering General Hospital’s wards have scored  the Trust eight out of a possible ten for the overall experience of the care they receive.

That was a finding in the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) 2018 National Inpatient Survey published today (Thursday, June 20).

The survey measures more than 60 aspects of the experience of being a patient staying in hospital for at least one night.

The Trust was rated ‘about the same’ as other NHS Trusts nationally in all 11 of the survey’s performance categories. https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RNQ/survey/3#undefined

Kettering General Hospital’s Director of Nursing and Quality, Leanne Hackshall, said: “The survey shows that most patients who stay overnight on our wards have a very positive experience of our care and feel well looked after.

“Our overall score of 8/10 in the survey highlights that good experience and is also in line with our recent CQC inspection where we were rated ‘good’  in the caring category for all of our service areas.

“In today’s survey we were better than the national average in one area – not changing people’s planned admission to hospital dates for a waiting list procedure. (9.5/10)

“This reflects significant work we have undertaken over the last year to reduce waiting times for routine operations – which has included carrying out additional waiting list work throughout the week and at weekends.

We were disappointed to find that we scored worse than the national average for getting enough help from staff to eat your meals (6.2/10) and getting enough to drink while in hospital (8.8/10).

“These are areas of practice that are undergoing particular focus and scrutiny for improvement with clear timescales for delivery.

“We have just introduced a scheme called ward accreditation where our wards are setting out to achieve a range of key standards – which include providing good nutrition and hydration for patients.

“These standards are assessed with wards working towards a gold accreditation standard where they can prove and evidence they do all of the basics of care well.

“In addition we have a new way of campaigning within nursing called “Proud to be Safe” which provides a focus on key practice standards ensuring staff know what is expected of them.

“Through this campaign, in the month of July we will focus on nutrition and hydration with a number of posters, communications, and training sessions to facilitate further improvement.

“Other initiatives include our plan to expand our volunteer workforce over the next year.

“This will also help as some of our volunteers are trained to work with families to support patients who may be reluctant to eat and drink without encouragement.

“In addition we will continue to stress the importance of our protected meal time initiative where our staff spend a dedicated amount of time in the day to help patients to eat their meals – especially those who are known to have problems eating.”

Overall 482 KGH patients over the age of 16 took part in 2018 survey by answering a questionnaire about the care they received while staying as an inpatient for at least one night at the hospital in July 2018.