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The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust has been warned after consistently failing to meet the national standards of quality and safety.

Following a recommendation from the Care Quality Commission’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, Monitor, the regulator for foundation trusts, has placed the trust in to special measures after serious concerns emerged about the hospital in Gayton Road, King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

Consecutive CQC inspections found issues with standards of care at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn.

The most recent inspection, in August, resulted in CQC issuing formal warnings to the trust. Inspectors found low staffing, a lack of training in relation to dementia care, as well as systems to manage risks not being robust enough, were putting patient care at risk. The inspection took place in response to concerns that a number of the national standards of quality and safety were not being met. CQC’s report is published on its website today.

This followed an earlier inspection in May where the trust was found not to be complying with a number of the national standards and was told to improve.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: "The failings we found at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn were unacceptable on more than one occasion.

"The concerns we found, coupled with information from our partner agencies and other regulators, were so great we felt it was necessary to request that Monitor intervene and place the trust in to special measures to assist in driving through improvements for patient care.

"CQC will continue to monitor this trust closely and our inspectors will be returning unannounced to check on whether improvements have been made and standards are being met."

CQC has this week announced the next wave of hospitals to be inspected as part of its new inspection programme. This included information about the 161 acute hospital trusts and CQC’s current view of risk in those services.

Separated into six bands this showed hospitals considered to present greatest risk to patients with band one being the highest and band six the lowest. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust is in band one.

NHS England is also due to publish a report of findings of a rapid responsive review, which it carried out into the quality of care at the trust, shortly.

The review by NHS England was carried out while CQC inspectors were at the trust in August.

Ends

For further information please contact Louise Grifferty, regional communications manager, on 07717 422917 or CQC’s press office on 0207 448 9401 or out of hours on 07917 232 143.

Notes to editors

A full copy of the report about the inspection carried out at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is available on this website at the link below.

Read the full report on The Queen Elizabeth Hospital's profile page.

Monitor has issued a statement on the special measures.

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.