Daily Insight: Too much support?

Few trusts are under as much pressure as University Hospitals Plymouth Trust.

Thanks to an under-sized emergency department, the trust is grappling with enormous emergency care pressure – best illustrated by problems taking patients from ambulances.

On Thursday, the day after a quieter day due to the paramedics’ strike, the trust had 19 ambulances queueing outside Derriford Hospital’s ED.

Managers are doing all they can to tackle the issue. But the problems have sparked concern at the centre, with NHS England officials making several trips to the trust to see what’s going on.

However, this “support” is starting to irk local managers – with a concern escalated to CEO Ann James that the visits are causing trust resources to be “stretched thinly”, according to committee minutes.

The most recent visit generated “few new insights”, the minutes stated.

Asked for more information, the trust diplomatically sought to dampen down the issue and told HSJ it was grateful for the external support.

But its spokeswoman noted each visit “takes time from our staff to facilitate”.

NHSE, which has faced allegations of micromanagement in the past, needs to make sure its “support” does not cause further problems for over-burdened trusts.

The harder they fall

In his interview with HSJ earlier this year, Owen Williams made it pretty clear that Salford Royal Hospital would be losing its “outstanding” rating.

What came as a surprise, however, was to see the hospital drop two ratings to ‘requires improvement’. Its A&E department was even rated ‘inadequate’ for safety.

The high public profile of Salford and its former CEO Sir David Dalton means lots of people have an opinion on this.

Some claim it was never as good as its reputation, others that it nosedived under Sir David’s successor, Raj Jain, between 2019 and 2021, while others believe it was brought down by the merger with Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust and formation of the Northern Care Alliance.

There may be truth in each of those, but either way it’s a depressing fall for a hospital once held up as an NHS beacon of patient safety – most notably by Jeremy Hunt.