North East London NHS Foundation Trust has received a new overall rating of ‘Good’, an improvement from the previous ‘Requires improvement’ rating.
In an inspection earlier in the year, the CQC inspectors found the culture of the organisation had improved and staff spoke positively about the changes being embedded through its Just and Compassionate Culture Programme.
They also noted that staff felt confident to speak up should they experience any concerns in relation to patient safety.
Jacqui Van Rossum, NELFT acting Chief Executive, commented: “I am proud of the dedication and commitment of all our staff who have been working hard to continuously improve the services we provide and this is recognised in our CQC rating of Good. We strive to deliver the best care by the best people and this is a significant step towards our overall ambition to be rated as outstanding.
“It is tremendously important for us to reflect on our achievements and improvements across the Trust, but I am conscious that we must also learn from where we can do better. We want to ensure we deliver consistently high-quality care across the communities we serve and we are continuing on our improvement journey.
“I would like to thank every member of staff who has helped us to reach this point, particularly through the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I know their passion for delivering the best possible patient care has now been recognised by our regulator.”
In addition, the inspectors found improvements in way in which the senior leadership team was working together, visibility of senior leaders and the board and the representation of allied health professionals at a senior leadership level.
Wellington Makala, NELFT Chief Nurse and Executive Director for AHPs and Psychological Services, added: “While we have achieved a rating of Good overall, we recognise that we still have work to do to assure the CQC in the patient safety domain in relation to waiting times and the impacts of this in terms of risk for our patients.
“Waiting times for young people to access services is a national concern and we know the pandemic has also impacted negatively on this. We have been proactively working with our partners and commissioners to find ways of addressing this and managing any potential risk.
“We are also working through a plan to ensure all teams are up to date with their mandatory training and are able to record this appropriately.
“As an organisation focused on learning and quality improvement, we recognise the need to prioritise these areas and I am pleased that they are things we were already working to improve ahead of the CQC inspection.”
To read the report in full please visit: http://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RAT
