Princess Royal Hospital '˜requires improvement' says health regulator

However Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (BSUH), which runs the hospital in Haywards Heath, has been placed in special measures after a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection back in April.

Today (Wednesday August 17) the CQC has published its full report, and it rated urgent and emergency services at the Princess Royal is ‘inadequate’, but end of life care as ‘good’, with everything else rated as ‘requiring improvement’.

Overall the CQC has recommended that the NHS trust be placed into special measures.

Gillian Fairfield, interim chief executive at the BSUH, said: “It is clear from the CQC report that in many areas the Trust has failed our patients and on behalf of the Trust, I apologise unreservedly.

“The reasons for many of the failures highlighted by the inspectors are complex and wide ranging. The NHS as a whole is seeing growing demand for services and, like many other Trusts across the country, this has caused us significant challenges which has affected the standard of the care we are providing our patients.”

She added: “We know we should and need to be doing better for our patients and staff. The failures identified by the CQC are completely unacceptable and over the last four months we have had, and we will continue to have, a relentless focus on addressing them.”

Edward Baker, deputy chief inspector of hospitals at the CQC, said: “It is clear that the problems we have found on this inspection go right through Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

“It is a matter of some concern that we found there was a distinct disconnect between the trust board and staff working in clinical areas, with very little insight by the board into the main safety and risk issues, and seemingly little appetite to resolve them.

“For some time the trust has been failing to meet national standards on waiting and treatment times, there were high numbers of cancelled appointments and operations, and delays in providing diagnostic results. “We found that the executive team had failed on multiple occasions to provide resources or support to clinical staff in critical care and there was no acknowledgement that they understood the problems staff identified.

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