England’s chief inspector of hospitals has published the latest report into services at Southport & Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust following the CQC’s inspection earlier in April this year.

The trust was rated as ‘requires improvement’ and whilst the CQC found there had been significant improvements in some services, it has rated the accident and emergency department (A&E) and the surgical services at Southport and Formby District General Hospital as ‘inadequate’. 

You can see the CQC's full report and assessment of services at the trust by visiting its website 

In a joint statement, NHS Southport and Formby Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and NHS West Lancashire CCG, said:

“It is encouraging that the report recognises the care and compassion of hospital and community staff at the trust, reflecting their commitment, hard work and dedication. It is also promising to see improvements in some of those service areas that rated poorly in the CQC’s last inspection.

“The report does however reflect that a great deal more needs to be done. It highlights areas that require much needed improvement, such as community health services and others of significant concern, particularly A&E. It is clear that urgent care services need to rapidly improve.

“We will tackle these issues, as well as other ongoing quality concerns we have, collaboratively through both CCGs working with Southport & Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust and other health and social care partners, so we can achieve the quality of care we expect for our patients.

“We are committed to commissioning high quality services, provided locally whenever it is safe and appropriate in line with our individual CCG programmes, Building for the Future and Shaping Sefton with its vision of community centred health and care. These programmes put GP practices and their patients at their core, enabling hospitals to concentrate on providing quality services focused around their areas of expertise and which better join up with the other community based care that our patients need.

“Shaping Sefton and Building for the Future have been informed by the views of the hospital, other health and social care partners and our residents and we now need to move this work forward to address the challenges we face. We are at the start of a process to determine how services might adapt so they are able to better meet the changing needs of our patients, offering them better health outcomes in the future.

“We will need to build on the strong clinical relationships that exist between the hospital and our GP membership to move this work forward, also closely involving wider health and social care partners. In addition, the views of our residents will be crucial in determining any options for future service arrangements that may emerge from this work over time.”

We welcome views about all of the services we commission and encourage people to simply fill in our online feedback form.