The article refers to the Care Quality Commission assessments of Great Ormond Street Hospital which were announced publicly in October 2009. The Trust’s current assessment is that it will improve on its assessment for clinical care this year but the Care Quality Commission may change the way they report results.
The Trust was pleased to have been assessed as ‘good’, as regards its finances. Regarding quality of services the Trust was rated ‘fair’. This related to failing one waiting times target in one clinical speciality; spinal surgery. Apart from this we would have been excellent. Reducing unnecessary waits for families is one of our key priorities. However, waiting times for spinal surgery is a national issue because of shortage of capacity. We have invested in this service to bring waiting times down. We have appointed a new spinal surgeon. We now meet, and expect to meet in future, all waiting time criteria, for this and for other services.
We feel this rating does not reflect the full quality of what we do. Great Ormond Street Hospital is treating more children than two years ago and seeing them more quickly.
"Overwhelming majority" of consultants support Chief Executive
Statement issued by Dr Graham Davies, Chair, General Medical Staff Committee (GMSC), Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust Tuesday 15 June 2010: “At a heavily attended meeting of the GMSC, the hospital’s consultant body, the following statement was agreed. “The overwhelming majority of consultants support the Chief Executive and senior management of the hospital.”
Read more from the ICH press office.
The Chair of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, Baroness Tessa Blackstone, and the Board, stated on 9 June 2010 that Dr Jane Collins and her management team have the complete support of the Board.
Read the full statement.
The Trust can confirm Baroness Tessa Blackstone has not been forwarded the letter referred to in the media signed by a number of consultants.
Training and standards compliance
In some categories, the Commission has reported low levels of compliance with certain training or standards. In fact, the staff concerned had vastly higher levels of training or competence. For example, our staff will routinely have a higher standard of emergency training than the basics referred to.
In other standards, the wrong questions are being asked. For example in GOSH outpatient clinics, many clinics are taken by highly experienced specialist children's nurses and there is a Modern Matron for Outpatients who is a children's nurse. There is therefore no need to have additional children’s nurses present in those clinics.
These problems with the returns have been explained to the Commission. We don't think we were penalised in any sense for these figures.
High levels of patient and parent satisfaction (Feb 2010)
A recent survey, conducted by Ipsos MORI, showed that 94 per cent of patients and their parents were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied with their last visit to GOSH. The vast majority (96 per cent) of those questioned had confidence and trust in the doctors, and the same proportion said they would be likely to recommend the hospital to a friend or relative if their child needed treatment.
This figures, particularly the ‘recommends’, would be considered high in any industry whether private or public.
Contact information:
GOSH-ICH Press Office: 020 7239 3125
Email:
Coxs@gosh.nhs.ukFor genuine and urgent out of hours call speak to switchboard on 020 7405 9200
