NHS stops referring patients to private hospital after damning report:
Care failures at Mount Alvernia in Surrey included surgeon who operated without gloves in blood-stained shirt sleeves.
The NHS has said it will not refer patients to a private hospital following a scathing assessment of the chaotic and dangerous conditions that led it to suspend children's surgery.
The Mount Alvernia hospital in Surrey, run by BMI Healthcare, one of Britain's biggest private healthcare providers, agreed to suspend surgery earlier this week after the damning Care Quality Commission (CQC) report.
Care failures cited by the CQC report included a surgeon who operated without gloves in blood-stained shirt sleeves, and a child who was not seen by a paediatrician for seven hours despite their condition deteriorating.
An unannounced inspection in February, carried out after concerns were raised by whistleblowers, resulted in the hospital failing on every measure but one. It met an acceptable standard only on the management of medicines.
The local NHS clinical commissioning group (CCCG), which purchases NHS care on behalf of patients in the area, said on Friday it had stopped referring patients there "for the time being".
Guildford and Waverley CCCG said it had used the hospital for only a small number of referrals, all involving adult care, and it had not sent any children to Alvernia for NHS-funded operations.
Dr David Eyre-Brook, chair of the CCCG, said: "The quality of healthcare services and the safety of patients is paramount at all times. We take any concerns about patient care extremely seriously and have taken immediate action to ensure the safety of patients while issues identified by the CQC are resolved.
"As part of this, we are making rapid arrangements for patients to be offered treatment with other healthcare providers to ensure they receive the care they need promptly.
"We have taken the decision to suspend our commissioning of admissions to Mount Alvernia hospital for the time being. We have contacted all the GPs in Guildford and Waverley to inform them of our action.
"We will be liaising closely with the CQC and will rescind our suspension only when we and the CQC are satisfied that all appropriate actions have been carried out by the hospital to fully address the issues raised by the inspectors."
BMI Healthcare apologised for the failures, which it called unacceptable. It said all the issues at Mount Alvernia had been put right since the inspection and that it had reviewed all of its other hospitals and found no similar problems elsewhere.
The CQC reported that the hospital, which did not regularly deal with very sick children, had no policy or guidance on the care of children, no early warning system to alert staff to a child's deterioration, and no policy on pain management for children. Children's resuscitation equipment was broken and there was only one trained children's nurse.
Its report paints a picture of a hospital where surgeons broke the rules and refused to listen to criticism. One surgeon refused to let women patients have chaperones during intimate examinations. Another did not wash his hands between seeing patients. A consultant brought an unannounced visitor into the operating theatre and insisted the list be changed for their convenience, increasing the risk of mistakes.
The same consultant sedated patients and left them without an appropriately trained member of staff to look after them. The consultant would turn up late to theatre and talk on the phone during surgery.
Guardian
The NHS has said it will not refer patients to a private hospital following a scathing assessment of the chaotic and dangerous conditions that led it to suspend children's surgery.
The Mount Alvernia hospital in Surrey, run by BMI Healthcare, one of Britain's biggest private healthcare providers, agreed to suspend surgery earlier this week after the damning Care Quality Commission (CQC) report.
Care failures cited by the CQC report included a surgeon who operated without gloves in blood-stained shirt sleeves, and a child who was not seen by a paediatrician for seven hours despite their condition deteriorating.
An unannounced inspection in February, carried out after concerns were raised by whistleblowers, resulted in the hospital failing on every measure but one. It met an acceptable standard only on the management of medicines.
The local NHS clinical commissioning group (CCCG), which purchases NHS care on behalf of patients in the area, said on Friday it had stopped referring patients there "for the time being".
Guildford and Waverley CCCG said it had used the hospital for only a small number of referrals, all involving adult care, and it had not sent any children to Alvernia for NHS-funded operations.
Dr David Eyre-Brook, chair of the CCCG, said: "The quality of healthcare services and the safety of patients is paramount at all times. We take any concerns about patient care extremely seriously and have taken immediate action to ensure the safety of patients while issues identified by the CQC are resolved.
"As part of this, we are making rapid arrangements for patients to be offered treatment with other healthcare providers to ensure they receive the care they need promptly.
"We have taken the decision to suspend our commissioning of admissions to Mount Alvernia hospital for the time being. We have contacted all the GPs in Guildford and Waverley to inform them of our action.
"We will be liaising closely with the CQC and will rescind our suspension only when we and the CQC are satisfied that all appropriate actions have been carried out by the hospital to fully address the issues raised by the inspectors."
BMI Healthcare apologised for the failures, which it called unacceptable. It said all the issues at Mount Alvernia had been put right since the inspection and that it had reviewed all of its other hospitals and found no similar problems elsewhere.
The CQC reported that the hospital, which did not regularly deal with very sick children, had no policy or guidance on the care of children, no early warning system to alert staff to a child's deterioration, and no policy on pain management for children. Children's resuscitation equipment was broken and there was only one trained children's nurse.
Its report paints a picture of a hospital where surgeons broke the rules and refused to listen to criticism. One surgeon refused to let women patients have chaperones during intimate examinations. Another did not wash his hands between seeing patients. A consultant brought an unannounced visitor into the operating theatre and insisted the list be changed for their convenience, increasing the risk of mistakes.
The same consultant sedated patients and left them without an appropriately trained member of staff to look after them. The consultant would turn up late to theatre and talk on the phone during surgery.
Guardian
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