Inspectors see hospital emergency service improve

Milton Keynes General is given an overall rating of good by inspectors after making improvements

Health inspectors have raised the rating for a hospital's urgent and emergency services to "good" following improvements.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection of the Milton Keynes University Hospital took place in April, prompted by the hospital after the death of a patient.

Information shared with the CQC "indicated potential concerns" about the systemic safety and quality of people’s care - but inspectors found improvements had been made.

The CQC raised the hospital trust from "requires improvement" to "good" for the safe category.

It said the hospital would remain "good" overall, as well as for the effective, caring, responsive, and well-led categories.

A number of improvements had been made in the hospital, the CQC said, including proactively sharing learnings to better protect patients.

The hospital trust has also been given an overall rating of good

Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said: "When we inspected the urgent and emergency services at Milton Keynes University Hospital, we were pleased to see leaders supported a strong learning and safety culture.

"This had led to clear improvements to the quality of people’s care and a reduction in the length of people’s stays in the emergency department."

'Seamless integration'

Among the findings, Mr Dunn said staff treated people with compassion and worked well with colleagues from separate mental health providers, to ensure a seamless integration of people’s physical and mental healthcare services.

"Leaders thoroughly investigated incidents when things had gone wrong, involving the people affected" and although staff were busy at times, people reported feeling safe, he added.

The report said that although the departments were now rated "good", they were often full or close to capacity.

Staff told inspectors that children were in beds in the emergency department, when they should be in specialist mental health beds, but sometimes none were available.

Milton Keynes has been waiting to find out if it can build a new women and children’s hospital to increase capacity.

The current Labour government has put the plans on hold while it carries out a hospitals review.