York teaching Hospitals NHS Trust 'requires improvement', inspectors say

The report said that national targets for accident and emergency waiting times were not met

Patients at York and Scarborough hospitals have often waited too long for treatment, inspectors have said.

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was also "unable to consistently provide safe staffing levels", the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said.

The trust blamed, in part, problems in recruiting nurses and consultants together with high sickness levels.

Chief executive Patrick Crowley said improvements had been made since inspectors visited in March and May.

The CQC report said while some areas of the trust's operation had been rated as "good", others, including waiting times for A&E assessments, needed improvement.

'Caring and responsive'

Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Prof Sir Mike Richards, said: "We found a number of areas of outstanding practice across all sites, with services going the extra mile to improve the support that they provided to people.

"However, we saw other services where more needed to be done to make sure that care and treatment consistently met the required standard.

"People are entitled to receive treatment and care in services which are consistently safe, effective, caring and responsive to their needs.

"There were shortages of nursing staff on medical and some surgical wards, consultant cover within accident and emergency (A&E) and community inpatient staff.

"Patients were often waiting too long for treatment."

Mr Crowley said the trust, which also runs services at Bridlington hospital, was suffering from a national shortage of nurses and the effects of a harsh winter.

He added: "Hospitals across the country were under huge pressure because of the level of illness in the system.

"We are working with the whole health and social care system to ensure that this is sustainable."