Embargoed for broadcast or publication until 00.01 on Thursday 28 April

Focus will remain

on improving quality

The Trust that runs Colchester General Hospital and Essex County Hospital will continue to focus on improving patient care and quality, its Chief Executive pledged today (Thurs).

Frank Sims was speaking after NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission jointly recommended a long-term partnership between Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust as the only way of securing services for patients long into the future.

“I’m pleased that NHS Improvement and the CQC acknowledge that we have made improvements,” he said.

“We have highly professional and dedicated staff who can be proud of what they have achieved, often in extremely challenging circumstances.I want to thank them for their magnificent service and I know a real determination to provide good care for local patients will continue to be uppermost in their minds.

“Improving care and quality to ensure we provide outstanding care, consistently for all patients at all times, will continue to be at the heart of everything we do.

“For example, we will continue to work tirelessly to deliver the Quality Improvement Plan that was approved by the CQC and Monitor in late February.”

Improvements include:

  • the Trust employed 1,093.10 (whole-time equivalent) registered nurses on 24 April, compared with 953.35 last June and 964.40 last April
  • the total number of staff has increased from 3,646.53 last March to 3,801.24 in February
  • the average waiting time for treatment has fallen to 6.7 weeks compared with 7.8 weeks last September
  • mandatory training compliance has steadily increased from 75.06% last September to 86.38% on 24April
  • sepsis screening in the Emergency Department (A&E) has increased from 20% last September to 89% this February
  • the percentage of staff appraised rose from 54.9% on 10 January to 76.1% on 24 April.

Mr Sims said that in January, the Trust’s Board of Directors agreed that the organisation was not clinically and financially sustainable in its current form and that to move forward it had to actively seek partners.

The Trust has been working with senior leaders at Ipswich Hospital, including the Chief Executive, Medical Director and Director of Nursing, to help decide if there is an opportunity for both organisations to work more closely on clinical collaboration.

Mr Sims said the Trust was building on the links it already has with Ipswich – for example, vascular surgeons from both hospitals have been collaborating since April 2007 on providing an emergency vascular surgery service for the 750,000 population of east Suffolk, north Essex and the Colne Valley and since July 2012 Colchester General Hospital has served the same population as a centre for major vascular surgery.

There are many opportunities for clinical collaboration and Colchester wants to take these forward in order to achieve benefits for patients and long-term clinical and financial sustainability, he added.

Colchester would now collaborate closely with Ipswich Hospital and NHS Improvement to work out the details of their partnership and how the arrangement could best maximise benefits for patients in north east Essex and east Suffolk.

Greater collaboration between health and social care organisations is national policy and is already impacting on Essex, with the acute hospitals in Chelmsford, Basildon and Southend collaborating as the Mid and South Essex Success Regime.

The new planning process in the NHS, called the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), is bringing together local health and care leaders, organisations and communities to develop local plans for improved health, care and finances over the next five years, delivering the NHS Five Year Forward View.

NHS England announced last month that north east Essex will be in the same STP “footprint” as all of Suffolk, with the exception of Waveney.