'Excellent news for patients'as trust wins rating appeal

Jeni Harvey

HOSPITAL services in Sheffield have been rated as “excellent” rather than “good”, following an appeal to NHS watchdog the Care Quality Commission.

Each year, every one of the country’s 391 NHS trusts receives two ratings on a four-point scale of “excellent”, “good”, “fair” or “weak.”

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One rating covers the quality of the trust’s services, measured against the Government’s core standards and national targets.

The other, meanwhile, relates to the use of the trust’s resources, measured against how well they manage their finances.

For the last two years Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages five of the city’s hospitals, was awarded the highest possible rating of excellent in both areas.

However, in October last year, the Trust was then awarded “excellent” for financial management but “good” for quality of services, in the ratings that referred to the year 2008/9.

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Sir Andrew Cash, chief executive of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “There are 23 indicators and standards which you have to achieve to gain an excellent rating.

“They cover the things which really matter to patients like safety, quality of care, reduced waiting times, cleanliness of the hospitals and how responsive we are to our patients.

“One of the indicators was about participating in heart care audits for which we were given an ‘under-achieved’ score.

“However, we should have been scored as ‘data not available’ rather than under-achieved.

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“The Care Quality Commission acknowledged this and so our overall rating has now changed from good to excellent for the quality of our services.

“This means we are once again one of only a handful of hospitals to achieve the highest possible score for both the quality of our services and our use of resources, or financial management.

“We are also one of only a small number of trusts to have achieved a double excellent rating three years running, which is excellent news for our patients and testament to the hard work and dedication of all our 13,000 staff.”

The Care Quality Commission regulates health and adult social care services in England, whether they’re provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations.