Hertfordshire hospital trust once again rated “requires improvement”

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust has been rated “requires improvement” for a second time in a row.

Although rated “inadequate” in 2015, this Hertfordshire hospital trust is showing little sign of improvement.

A Care Quality Commission report highlighted many areas that were running below the desired standard. St Albans City Hospital’s Minor Injuries Unit was found to need some of the most improvements, as there continued to be no official process for assessing patients, resulting in many people waiting up to three hours before they were seen.

Another area that was found to require serious attention was the Urgent Treatment Centre in Hemel Hempstead. The report discovered that medical records were often being stored in an inappropriate manner, and the correct measures were not being carried out in order to control infection within the unit.

The report did find that within this hospital trust the bereavement care staff, the dementia assessment unit and the stroke unit all performed outstandingly well.

A Specialist Medical Negligence Lawyer said: “This illustrates a prime example of how far the NHS still remain in terms of providing adequate treatment and care. Appropriate as well as permanent measures need to be configured so that the term “inadequate” can no longer be a term deemed on the NHS.”