CQC report criticises Derriford Hospital A&E standards

Standards at Derriford Hospital's A&E department have been branded "unacceptable" by inspectors.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said there was "work to be done" to ensure people attending A&E were being cared for in the right place.

Plymouth Hospitals Trust was rated "outstanding" for its patient care, but was told it requires improvement overall.

It said it was working on areas identified by the watchdog.

Suzy Franklin, from Unison, said the results came as "no surprise" and staff morale was "still at an all time low".

Inspectors were "particularly concerned" at the backlog of patients waiting for the results of scans and numbers of patients awaiting follow-up treatment.

The CQC also said in its report, external that the hospital trust provided services that were effective and well-led.

Chief inspector of hospitals, Prof Sir Mike Richards, said: "The trust will need to work with partners to ensure that as far as possible, patients who are medically fit to leave hospital are supported to do that in a timely way."

"Some people have been unable to get initial appointments as soon as they should, delaying their diagnosis, or treatment, or they are waiting too long for surgery. This has had very serious consequences in some cases."

Inspectors would return "in due course" to check on improvements, he said.

"It is a credit to all the staff that we found caring to be outstanding overall, but especially in maternity and gynaecology, children and young people's services and end of life care," he added.

Ann James, chief executive of Plymouth Hospitals Trust, said "The areas highlighted by the inspectors as needing action are ones we are already working on.

"We are looking, for example, at how best we use our beds to try to reduce the number of patients experiencing cancellations and to ensure staffing levels are right, we have been undertaking targeted recruitment drives for many months.

"We are continuing to do everything we can to attract more staff, particularly more nurses and more doctors in some specialities."