Scandal hospital bosses 'must quit'

Nov 26 2009

Managers at a scandal-hit hospital should resign after a report found a catalogue of failings and an unusually high death rate, the head of a patient group has said.

Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, called for board members of Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to step down after the damning report found poor hygiene and standards of care.

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found blood-splattered equipment, blood stains on floors and curtains and badly soiled mattresses in the A&E department with stains soaked through.

Equipment was being used repeatedly that should only be used once and resuscitation room equipment was past its use-by date. Other items found at the trust included blood pressure cuffs stained with blood, suction machines contaminated with fluid inside and out and evidence of mould.

Yet in the same month as the CQC issued the trust with a warning over poor standards, it also gave it a glowing review. Basildon and Thurrock was rated as "good" on quality of service in the CQC's 2008/09 assessment and marked "excellent" for its financial management.

The CQC gave the trust 13 out of 14 for cleanliness, seven out of eight for standards of care and five out of five for keeping the public healthy.

Ms Murphy said the hygiene problems and failure to provide basic care echoes other similar reports on other hospitals.

She said: "How many times do the public need to keep hearing about this before the Government is embarrassed enough to do something about it?"

Trust chairman Michael Large said: "That Monitor has found us to be in breach of our terms of authorisation as a Foundation Trust is an extremely serious matter and we do not seek to under-estimate its gravity. I want to reassure our local community that the safety and well-being of our patients is our highest priority."

He added: "We have had expert independent clinical advice and nothing has pointed to a fundamental problem with clinical care. But we are not complacent and this further scrutiny of our leadership and governance processes is another opportunity for us to prove ourselves."