Hospitals improve but more to do
A struggling hospital will remain in special measures despite making significant improvements.
A care watchdog report upgraded the East Kent hospitals’ trust’s status from Inadequate to Requires Improvement.
Chris Bown, parachuted in on a £294,000 paypacket to help save the ailing trust, says the Care Quality Commission (CQC)’s findings are a success.
More than 50 inspectors from the CQC visited Kent and Canterbury Hospital, the QEQM Hospital in Margate, Ashford’s William Harvey Hospital, Buckland Hospital in Dover and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone, to assess whether standards have improved.
Last September the CQC had identified “serious failures in patient safety and leadership”.
The district’s beleaguered hospitals endured a week-long showdown with the national health watchdog in July after being plunged into special measures last year.
The watchdog imposed a programme of improvements needed to see the trust pulled out of special measures.
Both Buckland Hospital and Royal Victoria Hospital have now been rated as Good.
But inspectors found that William Harvey Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital and Kent and Canterbury Hospitals still require improvement.
The CQC has opted to keep the trust in special measures for a further six months to be followed by another inspection. A generator exploding sparked a blaze in a property, which was being refurbished, on Tuesday.
Flames spread through the three-storey building in Milton Road, Gravesend, but a team of workmen who were in the house escaped unharmed.
The fire affected the roof and all three floors of the building.
About 30 firefighters tackled the blaze at its height.
Incident manager Greg Theophanidis confirmed a generator was the suspected cause of the blaze.
Speaking at the time, he said: “The fire certainly started on the ground floor and as it’s under refurbishment at the moment it’s just straight up through the building.
“We’ve got five engines here, we’ve got a team at the back of the property and a team at the front working on putting the fire out.”
Police were also called to block the road, which caused some delays in the town centre.