Birmingham Children's Hospital gets a month to prove it has improved
Mar 30 2009 by Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Post
Hospital bosses have less than a month to show they have improved services following a damning report by the official NHS watchdog, according to an MP.
Gisela Stuart (Lab Edgbaston) is to meet the managers at Birmingham Children’s Hospital following the Easter weekend in mid-April, to discuss the progress that has been made.
She wants the hospital to act quickly to implement recommendations in the Healthcare Commission report which reported “serious concerns about the safety of the patients” in some cases.
Ms Stuart said: “Many of these measures could be put into place very quickly, and I will expect the hospital trust to be able to tell me exactly what they have done when I meet them.”
The Commission’s inquiry found that the hospital, in Birmingham city centre, was struggling to meet demand for paediatric services, leading to delays in treatment and “less than optimum care”.
Other concerns raised by the Commission included complex operations carried out without fully-trained nursing staff, and a lack of equipment.
Ms Stuart demanded the inquiry after staff at University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston, wrote a report saying they were worried about the quality and safety of procedures, including transplants and neurosurgery, at the Children’s Hospital.
The Commission has published 12 key recommendation to improve the hospital’s performance.
They include talking to surgeons about the training needed by nursing staff who help them during operations.
The hospital should also set up a formal method for staff at University Hospital Birmingham to raise any concerns they have, the Commission said.
The Commission also told the hospital to improve the way it manages operating theatres, to ensure that they are available for the most urgent cases as quickly as possible.
Ms Stuart said: “I spoke to Alan Johnson and the Healthcare Commission calling for an investigation after the report by University Hospital Birmingham became public.
“I have asked to meet hospital managers after Easter, to ask whether they have put the recommendations into place yet.
“I want reassurance that they share my sense of urgency about this, and that they have put staff in place to deal with the problems reported by the Healthcare Commission.”
Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s new chief executive has admitted the Trust needs to be more “open and transparent”. Sarah-Jane Marsh, who took over after Paul O’Connor resigned three weeks ago, has apologised to Birmingham’s health scrutiny committee and said important lessons had been learned.
Committee members were furious that the first they heard about investigations into lack of beds, overwhelming demand, untrained staff and cancelled operations was in media reports.
