The quality of services at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, which runs the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath and the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, have been given a rating of “good” in this year’s Care Quality Commission annual health check.
This rating includes performance against national priorities, existing commitments and 24 core standards which are used to measure areas such as safety, clinical effectiveness and patient experience. Within the quality of services category we:
Improved our A&E performance to be the best performing type one A&E department in England;
Delivered the 18 week referral to treatment standard ahead of time;
Reduced the number of MRSA and C. difficile infections acquired in our hospitals by over 40%;
Passed all 24 of the core standards and all the national priorities (including, for example, on cancer and cardiac care) and all bar one of the existing commitments.
BSUH improved its rating for use of resources from “fair” to “good” which reflects the significant improvements made in its financial performance in the last two years.
Chief Executive, Duncan Selbie said:
“Having improved our performance against every national standard and commitment in 2008/09 over 2007/08, it is disappointing that we did not retain our “excellent” rating from last year. The benchmark to be rated the very best has been raised and we need to raise our game again. Nonetheless I want to recognise the outstanding improvements achieved by BSUH staff over the year and to say well done.
“This year we are pushing ahead with our plans to redevelop the Royal Sussex County Hospital as the Major Trauma and Critical Care Centre for Sussex and the south east of England and to replace some of the oldest buildings in the NHS. These buildings hinder our efforts to provide dignified and compassionate care at every turn. Realising our plans will enable us to redirect the energy it takes to work with such an inadequate infrastructure and will ultimately improve the experience of every person who walks through the front door.”
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For further information contact Rachel Clinton, Head of Communications on 01273 664911.
