Clinical teams at Barrow’s Furness General Hospital have raised growing concerns over the care of patients whose condition deteriorates.
As a result, the University Hospitals of Morecambe NHS Foundation Trust said it had some made immediate changes to make sure services were safe.
It has published a letter it has sent to staff, signed by Scott McLean, interim chief executive, Dr Helen Skinner, chief medical officer and Lynne Wyre, interim chief nurse.
An acutely deteriorating patient is someone whose condition suddenly becomes worse and can happen in any ward or department of the hospital.
Concerns raised include how decisions are made, how concerns are escalated, how care is recorded and some recent poor clinical outcomes.
The letter said: “We do not believe there are any immediate safety concerns at Furness General Hospital.
It said it had already:
- Escalated to the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board, NHS England North West and the Care Quality Commission – asking for advice and additional practical support
- Launched twice-daily cross-bay board rounds where consultants and the nurse in charge from the ICUs at Furness General Hospital and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary meet to review the sickest patients at Furness General Hospital and any new referrals and plan their care together
- Reminded clinical colleagues of their responsibility to document patient information in real time in the Electronic Patient Record – this will be regularly reviewed
- Relaunched morbidity and mortality meetings to help teams learn from cases and make improvements. A cross-bay governance meeting will be held every three months to share learning more widely
- Established stronger teaching and support for medical colleagues, including ‘journal clubs’ to review new research, strengthen evidence-based practice, and build research skills
- Established an incident management approach with executive directors and the divisional leadership team overseeing the work every day
It added, however, that health leaders knew there was more they could do to reduce risk to patient safety and has asked its staff for input.
Its letter to staff said: “What we don’t want to do is dictate what the next steps should be because it’s important that we face issues like this together and work to remove the feeling of ‘them and us’ that can appear at times like this.
“Despite the fact we may not always agree on everything, what we do know is that we all want the same thing – to provide safe and high-quality care at Furness General Hospital for many years to come.”
