Strength in Numbers dedicated to my late mother Kay
17/03/2015 • 9:12 pm 0
The country’s biggest NHS Trust has been placed in special measures, in the wake of a damning inspection report that catalogued unsafe care caused by staff shortages and a bullying culture at one of its main hospitals.
Whipps Cross Hospital, part of the Barts Health NHS Trust, was branded inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in a report which uncovered 208 serious incidents last year alone – including the deaths of two unborn babies, a new mother and a newborn baby. The Trust, which serves 2.5 million in east London and Essex, has been plagued by financial problems since it was formed by the merger of three London Trusts in 2012. It is also projecting a deficit of £93m this year. Two years ago, managers decided to cut hundreds of nursing posts to help balance the books, after a slowdown in national NHS funding combined with crippling repayments on a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal forced the Trust into the red. In total, 220 nursing posts were lost at Whipps Cross, and hundreds of other staff had their pay and responsibilities downgraded.
As a result, inspectors said yesterday, the hospital did not have enough staff to ensure safe care.
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Filed under: Hospital, NHS, NHS Blunders, Uncategorized, Barts NHS Trust, inadequate, unsafe, Whipps Cross Hospital
