Chichester Labour Party reacts to local hospitals’ ratings being lowered to ‘requires improvement’

Both Worthing and St Richard’s Hospitals have been downgraded from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission. Its inspectors found that the quality and safety of the surgery and medical care services at Worthing Hospital had deteriorated since the last inspection in 2016. “The service did not always have enough staff to care for patients” and staff “did not always assess risks to patients, or act on them, or keep good care records”. St Richard’s ‘did not have enough nursing, allied health professionals and support staff to keep patients safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment.”

Waiting lists are a problem at St Richard’s as well: “people could not always access the service when they needed it.” Demand is outstripping capacity, and operating lists are being cancelled due to inadequate staffing levels. The hospital did not meet national standards requiring patients to be seen within 18 weeks of referral, and in the period reviewed by the Inspectors almost 140,000 patients waited longer than 18 weeks.

Chichester CLP Chair Clare Walsh, said, “This is sadly a reflection of the 14 years of cuts that we have seen under the Conservative government, the lack of investment in our local hospitals as well as not paying front line NHS staff appropriately has led to this disappointing downgrade and shortage of staff.  This is why we need to elect a Labour government as soon as possible to reverse this trend.”

The CQC Reports can be found here (St Richard’s) and here (Worthing).