Hospital Chief Executive speaks out regarding public concerns over standard of care

Date published: 19 February 2010

After highly publicised concerns over the standard of patient care and the alarmingly high standardised mortality rate at Tameside hospital, and the forthcoming independent investigations at the hospital, Chief Executive of the Tameside Hospital NHS trust Christine Green has spoken regarding these issues:

“We are very aware of public concern and want to reassure people that this hospital continues to provide safe and effective patient care.

“Tameside Hospital routinely opens its doors to external regulatory bodies to carry out inspections, visits and to take a detailed look out its services and governance procedures. Sometimes we also invite external organisations into our hospital to review service areas and governance procedures. This is so that we leave no stone unturned in trying to find out where we are failing and learn where we can make improvements and do better. This is considered to be best practice.

“We therefore welcome both the forthcoming CQC and Monitor reviews which will take a further look at our hospital services and governance processes. Working jointly with Monitor, we have proactively sought additional scrutiny of our governance procedures in order to identify areas for improvement. At the same time the CQC will be looking at our quality of care as part of our registration process

“We know that this will be an open and transparent process which will highlight any further work which needs to be taken to continue improvements at Tameside Hospital.”

With regards the high mortality rate at the hospital, although Christine Green admitted that concerns over the mortality rate were just, that some other factors that are simply outside the hospitals control were contributing to this.

“We are facing unprecedented demands on our services. We have more emergency patients being admitted to hospital than ever before.

“Similarly, there are many issues we as a hospital simply cannot control but which have some influence on our mortality ratio. One of the most important, and one on which most people are agreed, is that there are insufficient alternatives to hospital care, particularly for care of the dying and end of life care. Most of us want to die with clinical support in our own home or certainly in a more tranquil place than a busy acute hospital.”

But she re-affirmed the hospital’s dedication and commitment to providing top quality patient care by adding “My focus – which is shared by the Trust Board - is on constant improvement. We will never arrive at a point where we believe we have the perfect hospital because we are driven by a desire to make the services we offer our patients better. With our new £120m hospital on the verge of completion, we have a great deal to be optimistic about. And while it may sometimes appear otherwise, it is crucial to remember we offer the people of our communities services which are safe and staffed by caring individuals who are passionate about one thing – caring for patients.