CHI attacks 'inaccurate' story

The Commission for Health Improvement has rushed to defend a London trust after a regional newspaper claimed that CHI had described its accident and emergency services as 'scandalously poor'.

The phrase - never used in the CHI report on West Middlesex University Hospital trust - was part of a story in the Evening Standard last Thursday which focused on poor conditions in A&E and long trolley waits.

CHI immediately wrote to the newspaper to defend the trust - and pointed out that the report of its clinical governance review had highlighted the success of the trust in tackling the difficulties.As HSJ went to press, the letter had not been published.

Trust spokesperson Andrew Butcher said the quote was 'completely inaccurate and the Standard has been forced to withdraw the story from later editions'.

He said the story was 'really disappointing, ' and had damaged the trust's reputation. 'We thought the CHI report was fair in its criticisms of us. They recognised the improvements we had made - we couldn't have asked for more.

Then the story came out and for local people it was so damaging.'

The report said: 'CHI was concerned about the facilities provided for people attending the A&E department. The department was overcrowded and waiting times excessive. There is a very high vacancy rate in nursing, combined with lack of leadership in the department. These combined issues result in a potentially unsafe environment at times.'

But in the press release attached to the report, CHI chief executive Dr Peter Homa said: 'CHI is encouraged to see that [the trust] is taking prompt action on concerns about A&E. They have already formed an action plan to address these concerns specifically.'

Mr Butcher said the trust had already opened an extra 39 beds, including nine escalation beds, to tackle lack of capacity across the trust - one of the key causes of pressure in A&E. Just this week an extra 40 nurses had been recruited from the Philippines, following a similarly successful trip to Australia and New Zealand.

In the letter to the Evening Standard, Dr Homa pointed out that the trust had increased its numbers of medical staff to deal with patients with minor injuries and that the A&E department was now much cleaner.

He also said morale was higher and that some staff had now returned to work at the trust.

A CHI spokesperson said: 'We are committed to the fair representation of the work that we do and the reviews that we publish.'