CQC rates GOSH as 'Good' overall

We welcome the publication of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) latest report into our services, which rates them as 'Good' and highlights many areas of 'Outstanding' practice.

The CQC Summary Report for GOSH 2019 is based on a previous inspection of all core services and more recent inspections of surgery departments, critical care and child and adolescent mental health wards and assessment against the well-led dimension. New findings from the latest inspection mean that the organisation remains rated as 'Good' overall.

Across the five CQC domains we were rated 'Outstanding' for the effectiveness of our services and the caring way in which they are delivered. We were also rated 'Good' for being well-led and being responsive to the needs of our patients.

Areas of outstanding practice seen on the most recent visit included:

• the collaborative work of teams to support families during a bereavement
• work by staff to create initiatives to improve a child or family’s experience through increasing their understanding of a treatment or helping children or young people who are frightened or phobic about aspects of their care and treatment
• ensuring young people’s views and experiences influence and inform service development
• contribution to global research into paediatric intensive care 
• the Gene Therapy Programme which has resulted in patients with severe combined immunodeficiency being cured without a transplant
• neuromuscular study of children with spinal muscular atrophy, which now licenced and approved by NICE, will improve the quality of life for patients with SMA and delay progression of the disease 
• the use of pioneering 3D modelling and virtual reality to plan and practice surgical procedures and collaboration with local acute trust to successfully perform specialist fetal surgery, the first of its kind.

While inspectors highlighted some good safety practices, our rating for safety has gone down to Requires Improvement. This was largely due to inconsistent processes in some clinical areas for medicines management, infection control and the use of equipment. The inspectors did highlight good practice in managing patient safety including: how we manage patients at risk; our detailed record keeping; collating safety information; and ensuring the right levels and skill mix of staff are in place to keep patients safe.

Great Ormond Street Hospital Chief Executive, Mat Shaw, said: “Putting the child and their family at the centre of what we do has always been our core aim at GOSH and our staff should be proud the CQC received such positive feedback from patients and their families.

“We are really pleased to be rated as 'Outstanding' for the effectiveness of our services and the caring way in which they are delivered by our staff. We have also improved on our overall 'Well-Led' rating, receiving a rating of 'Good', which is a real testament to people at all levels across the organisation engaging with each other in a way we hadn’t before. The fact that we are now rated either 'Good' or 'Outstanding' in every single clinical service is proof of this. In particular, we have seen significant improvements to our surgical service, which cuts across much of the work we do at the hospital. We were also rated 'Good' for the responsiveness of our care; enabling patients to access our services at the right time and in a way that suits their needs.

“However, we know there is still work to be done. While inspectors highlighted some good safety practice, our rating in this area has gone down to 'Requires Improvement'. This is because they found inconsistent processes in some clinical areas around the way in which we store our medication, how we control infection risk and how we ensure that our equipment is safe to use. They also highlighted that there is more we can do to support the roll out of the Electronic Patient Record system in our Mental Health services to ensure the greatest benefit for our patients. We need to get this right. We will work together to develop plans which help us to ensure that we are creating and maintaining the safest possible environment for our patients. We are committed to sharing our progress with you so that you can be confident in the care provided.

“With a now fully established and engaged leadership team in place, we believe GOSH is in a really good position to drive these improvements and build on our successes for the benefit of the children and young people we look after.”

Access the CQC's full report and summary report on the CQC’s website.