BLACKPOOL Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which treats some patients from East Lancashire, was one of the 14 hospitals included in the Keogh Review.

The trust was found to have been proactive in seeking external reviews to find solutions to its quality challenges, including high mortality.

However, the report found the pace of change was not at the level required to deliver the needed improvements in patient care.

Amongst the issues identified were:

  • Safety checks on equipment not being consistently undertaken;
  • Nursing staff levels found to not always sufficient across the trust and needing urgent review, particularly on elderly care wards.
  • The incident review system being unreliable in terms of reporting and classification of serious incidents, multi-disciplinary investigation and dissemination of findings.
  • Concerns about sufficient medical staff.
  • Infection control policy not being implemented consistently.

After the visit by the review board the trust agreed to submit a more detailed action plan to all outstanding concerns.

Follow up of the action plan will be undertaken by the regulators and local commissioners with a formal review later this year.