Shropshire hospital bosses grilled over trust's continued poor performance
Shropshire hospital bosses have been pressed on why the county's emergency trust is one of the worst performing in the country.
Councillors and representatives on the county's joint health scrutiny committee questioned senior management from Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), and the county's Integrated Care System for more than two hours this afternoon.
At the centre of the discussion was concern over why SaTH, which manages both Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford, languishes as one of the worst rated trusts in the country – and has done since 2018.
The trust is in special measures having been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2018 and has recently had the worst performance in the country on the Government's four-hour A&E target.
In that time it has also been subject to the damning findings of the Ockenden Review into its maternity services.
During the meeting committee members heard that inspectors from the CQC are currently at the trust, with bosses saying initial feedback had shown some "significant improvements" in some areas.
David Sandbach, a lay member of the committee and former chief executive of PRH, questioned why the trust had never been rated higher than 'requires improvement', and added that people should expect better for the half-a-billion pounds a year spent on its services.
