STRUCTURE: A West Midlands hospital which had its bid for foundation trust status suspended due to concerns over care standards has relaunched its application following discussions with Monitor.

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust had its application put on hold by the FT regulator following a critical report by the Care Quality Commission in July 2011.

The CQC carried out a responsive review in March and found the trust was not meeting some essential standards, adding that care “was not always safe”.

Its report highlighted incidents of nursing shortages, poor care on some wards and inadequate responses to complaints.

Mortality rates at the trust were also higher than expected with 12 per cent more patients dying in 2010-11 than expected.

The CQC has carried out a further review in January and subsequently declared the trust to be fully compliant.

The trust wrote to Monitor on 9 March to “re-activate” its application and will have to submit a series of documents throughout the summer as part of the assessement process.

An assessment team from Monitor was expected to be in the hospital conducting interviews from the end of April.

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Board paper

Source date

March 26

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