Performance of North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust

Summary

On 14 April 2016 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out an unannounced inspection of North Middlesex University Hospital.  The CQC inspectors found that the treatment model for patients was not effective and issued a warning notice that its accident and emergency department must make “significant improvements”. The hospital has until 26 August to make improvements to the quality of care it provides or further action may be considered by the regulator.

The CQC report, published on 6 July, found that medical care at North Middlesex requires some improvement and rates the urgent and emergency services as ‘inadequate’. In particular, it found that the hospital’s A&E department had insufficient middle grade and consultant grade emergency department doctors which resulted in “excessive delays in seeing a doctor and moving patients to specialist wards”.

North Middlesex University Hospital Trust has accepted the CQC findings. The hospital has begun a programme of improvements to address the concerns outlined by the CQC, such as delays in patients seeing a doctor and the need for greater leadership in the A&E department. These include: 

• a new clinical director of the hospital’s A&E department
• a new nursing lead in A&E who has previously led improvements in other A&E departments
• gaining five additional middle grade doctors and consultants on loan from other London trusts to bolster its A&E medical team.  

 North Middlesex University Hospital will receive support in making further improvements to its A&E service from the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. 

The hospital, together with partners, has also launched a new programme, known as “Safer, Faster, Better”, which is designed to speed up the flow of patients through A&E and to help it achieve the national target of seeing, treating, admitting or discharging 95% of patients within four hours.  The hospital’s performance against the national four hour waiting time measure fell from 94% last summer to 66% in January 2016. In June 2016 it had risen to 77%. The trust says it expects that the hospital will get back to achieving 95% by March 2017.   The hospital’s A&E department is one of London’s busiest, seeing around 500 patients a day. It met or came close to the 95% target until July 2015.

Follow this link to get a full copy of the CQC’s report