Kettering General Hospital improves after CQC care warning

Last year CQC inspectors visited Kettering General Hospital over concerns at the number of patient falls

A hospital warned last year about its medical care amid concerns about patient falls has improved its services, inspectors have confirmed.

Care at Kettering General Hospital was rated as inadequate by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors last May and a warning notice was issued.

A further inspection has now upgraded the service to requiring improvement.

The hospital's nursing director, Fiona Barnes, said "significant progress" had been made since last year's report.

Last year's inspection noted there had been "several serious incidents resulting in harm from falls where a lack of staff knowledge was identified as the cause, yet mandatory falls training was not undertaken until months later".

The Northamptonshire hospital's medical care was rated inadequate overall.

Action taken

CQC also served the trust a warning notice demanding improvements in how it managed and assessed risk, learnt from serious incidents, and took action around falls prevention.

A follow-up inspection in March found "most of the requirements for the warning notice have been met, and the rating for medical care services has improved from inadequate to requires improvement", its report stated.

The hospital was not re-rated during this inspection so its previous overall rating of requires improvement remains.

Bernadette Hanney, CQC's head of hospital inspection, said: "I'm pleased leaders and staff have worked hard to successfully improve medical care services.

"The service has now addressed most of the issues raised, and implemented the improvements needed, although there are still some areas which need to be fully embedded, particularly regarding learning from serious incidents."

The hospital's director of nursing, Ms Barnes, said: "Today's report demonstrates some of the significant progress we have made in improving safety on our medical wards, particularly on the issue of falls prevention."

She said the hospital had implemented "regular updated falls training" for staff, "with very high levels of compliance."