Staff at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust have made considerable improvements for patients arriving as emergencies following a CQC inspection.

Inspectors visited back in March of this year and have just published their report which has been delayed due to IT issues at the Care Quality Commission.

They carried out an inspection of Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC), Same Day Emergency Care and the Discharge Lounge, over two days.

At the time, the CQC arrived during an internal Critical Incident and saw the reality of a crowded busy Emergency Department with significant numbers of ambulances waiting, speaking to staff, patients and partner organisations.

The CQC served UHP with a Warning Notice under section 29A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 following the inspection and gave UHP until July 21 to make improvements. This notice has now expired.

The CQC overall rating for Derriford Hospital remains ‘Requires Improvement’ for UEC.

Interim Chief Executive Mark Hackett said: “At the time, we know the quality and speed of care we were able to offer patients coming for Urgent and Emergency Care was not what we aspire it to be when the CQC inspected our services back in early March.

“They arrived during an Internal Critical Incident and what they saw was fairly reflected in their report, but that was eight months ago now and we have made good progress in improving our performance since then.

“We have made significant improvements since March, but we are striving for better and there is more to do.”

The One Plan for UEC has created initiatives to treat people in the community to avoid having to attend hospital and investing in more Same Day Emergency Care.

They have started to reduce waits for patients, improving performance against the four-hour target from 54 per cent in March 2024 to 66.3 per cent by the end of October 2024.

They have also reduced ambulance handover delays significantly.

At the time of the visit in March, they were recording 9,326 hours lost to ambulance handover delays, they have brought that figure down to around 3,700 in October.