Health Inspectorate Wales publishes damning report on Ysbyty Glan Clwyd emergency department

HEALTH Inspectorate Wales has published a critical and concerning report on Ysbyty Glan Clwyd’s Emergency Department.

The report identified improvements and immediate concerns during the inspection which require the service to take action,

Summarising the inspector’s findings, the report concluded:

“At the time of our inspection we found that the ED, as the front door to the wider hospital, was experiencing a period of unrelenting demand on services. We acknowledged that this was a very stressful environment for some staff, who were working above and beyond in challenging conditions.

We found that the health board was not fully compliant with many of the Health and Care Standards and we highlighted significant areas of concern which could present an immediate risk to the safety of patients.

Our main concerns included poor patient experience within the ED with lengthy waiting times and poor management of health and safety risks.

We highlighted significant concerns regarding many aspects of the delivery of safe and effective care. We were not assured that all the processes and systems in place were sufficient to ensure that patients consistently received an acceptable standard of timely, safe and effective care.

We found that the quality of management and leadership was not sufficiently focused and robust. We also found that the wider leadership and governance arrangements, beyond direct management of the ED, were not having an effective or supportive impact on the ED.”

The report found “that health and safety risks were not appropriately managed within the department.”.

When reporting on the Quality of Management and Leadership the inspectors state:

“We spoke with a cross-section of staff working in the ED with many telling us that they were unhappy and struggling to cope with their workload. Staff also told us that they did not feel supported by the senior managers within the hospital.

We were concerned that senior managers were unaware of some of the very serious issues that we found during the inspection.

We were not assured that there was a supportive culture in place which promoted accountability and safe patient care and that the management and leadership was sufficiently focused and robust.”