Blog

Transition clinical leads and champions felt valued and supported by their managers and received the appropriate training and supervision to enable them to meet patients’ individual needs.Patients received treatment and care according to national guidelines. Transition services obtained good quality outcomes as evidenced by a range of national audits such as the Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health (RCPCH) and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a basis to quality assure its transition services.

Patients and their families were treated with respect, dignity and compassion, particularly at the most difficult times, and bereaved parents were given genuine, compassionate care with clear emotional support if a child died. Staff displayed a great sense of pride in the end of life care provided at the hospital. Patients’ needs and those of families and other representatives of patients were considered throughout the process and following death. Parents were involved at every stage and were treated as individuals.

There’s no need for the service to take further action. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

People told us and we saw that staff made an extra special effort when they provided care. Staff were committed to empowering young people through providing them with appropriate information and support to enable them to make decisions around the care they received.

The progress on implementing transition pathways for individual specialties was varied. There were 36 specialities where transition arrangements were either in place and well established or some in the earlier phases of development. Progress was dependent upon the complexity and rarity of individual medical conditions.Transition services used the Department of Health ‘You’re Welcome’ self-review tool, ‘Quality criteria for young people friendly health services, 2011’ to monitor standards via the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation framework (CQUIN).

Leaders had an inspiring purpose and common focus to deliver the best possible care to the children in their care, and this attitude was shared by staff at all levels. Staff across all groups were proud of the organisation as a place to work and spoke highly of the culture. Many staff told us the hospital was “the best place they had ever worked” and said they “couldn’t imagine working anywhere else”. Further work was needed to formalise governance processes so themes and areas of concerns specifically relating to transition could be identified and acted upon in a more timely and effective manner. The Birmingham Children’s Hospital is over 150 years old; services have been provided from Steelhouse Lane since 1862. Birmingham Children’s Hospital is a specialist paediatric centre with 378 beds, including a dedicated 31 bed paediatric intensive care unit, offering care to young patients up to the age of 16 from Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond. Forward Thinking Birmingham community mental health service provides services for 0-25 year olds.Patients were treated as individuals and different approaches were taken, when needed, to care for them in the most appropriate way. People from different cultures, backgrounds and religions were supported by staff and adjustments were made to accommodate their needs. There was a YPAG which was proactive in ensuring patients were involved in the development, design and delivery of services for children and young people. The was an Adolescent and Transition Forum (A&TF) to ensure the policy was implemented and Young Person’s Advisory Group (YPAG) which had the remit to support and monitor the use of the policy.

There were a range of examples of transition plans. Specialties used innovative and efficient ways to deliver more joined-up care to patients transitioning to adult care. There was a holistic approach to planning people’s transition to other services.

Clinical staff in outpatient departments were performing administrative tasks due to a lack of administrative and clerical support. We observed that this was adding to the delays experienced by patients in the ENT clinic. There was a positive, transparent culture of incident reporting and learning from incidents. Sufficient numbers of appropriately qualified and trained staff were on duty to ensure patients were kept safe. During our inspection there were no patients at the hospital requiring end of life care, although there were some palliative care patients, therefore we have gained assurance from documents and interviews with staff.

We found there was a real passion and commitment across multidisciplinary teams to deliver a patient centred and high quality service for young people and adolescents (patients) transitioning to adult care.Not all specialities used the trust’s documentation. Plans to support transition for the remaining 16 of the 36 specialities needing amending or further embedding.We saw numerous examples of staff going beyond the remits of their role to overcome obstacles to ensure the needs of the child, family and carers were met.There were a number of specialties participating in national research programs and used the outcome of these to develop innovative and pioneering approaches to high quality care for patients transitioning to adult care.

Staff used national guidelines and evidence-based treatment when looking after patients. The hospital took part in several national audits and staff were encouraged to carry out local audits. Results of audits were used to improve patients’ experiences and care.

There was an open, transparent culture with a clear vision and strategy for transition services which was led by a strong management team. Staff told us and we saw evidence that they were consulted and part of the development of the strategy, they were engaged and enthusiastic about the new developments within the transition service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which we can’t rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by us and will be published soon.They have one of the largest Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the country, with a dedicated inpatient Eating Disorder Unit and Acute Assessment Unit for regional referrals of children and young people.Community & mental health inspection reports for Birmingham Children’s Hospital can be found at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. Each report covers findings for one service across multiple locations

Feedback from parents and patients about the care they received was consistently excellent. Parents, carers and patients we spoke with said staff “went the extra mile” and were “brilliant” or “excellent” and the care given was much more than they expected.Browser Support We recommend using one of the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari. Any other browser may experience partial or no support.

Staff we spoke with, minutes of meetings, monitoring data and audit of transition pathways demonstrated the governance processes for transition services were in place for the majority of specialities.

Read our categorised news and features below or visit our news listing for a complete picture of all our news items ordered by latest date first. For news inquiries contact our press office.By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies. Detailed information, also on the right to withdraw consent, can be found in the website’s privacy policy.

The trust had undergone significant changes in senior and executive management due to the trust not meeting nationally identified targets. We used the intelligence we held about the hospital to identify that we needed to undertake a responsive inspection of the Emergency department (ED), Medicine, Surgery, and Outpatients and diagnostic imaging.

The trust was aware that there was a shortage of nursing staff, and that this had had an impact on the care given to patients. It had decided to make it easier to recruit band 5 nurses and band 2 staff by quicker approval of vacancies, and by introducing a rolling programme of recruitment. This was beginning to have an effect in some of the ward areas; however, the full impact of this recruitment programme may not be felt until early 2014. In the meantime, patients and staff said that shortages of nursing staff were preventing people from receiving good treatment and care.In general, we found the surgical and critical care services at Good Hope Hospital to be responsive to the needs of the people it served. However, we were concerned about the nursing staffing arrangements in maternity, children’s care, medical care and A&E. These presented in different ways and had different impacts on patients in these areas. We carried out this unannounced responsive inspection because the trust was in breach with regulators Monitor, and we had received intelligence which warranted our response and so we arranged the inspection. The inspection took place between 08 and 11 December 2014. We had inspected the service in November 2013 and the trust was still working through compliance action plans. The trust scored below average in the Friends and Family Tests introduced in both the A&E department and for inpatients. However, during the inspection, we heard positive feedback from patients who felt that, overall, care was responsive and provided in a sensitive and dignified manner despite caring staff being busy.Good Hope Hospital is the second largest of the three hospital locations run by the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust. It provides general and specialist hospital and community care for the people of East Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Tamworth and South Staffordshire. Good Hope Hospital has approximately 521 beds and is a centre for pain management.

In A&E, the initial triage was not followed up by a medical triage, which had an impact on potentially ill patients not being seen in a timely manner. The care given in this area was poor because of the time pressures on nursing staff. Within the medical unit, the care given to patients mostly met their needs, but on the acute medical ward (Ward 20) there was a lack of basic furniture such as lockers and chairs, regular nursing staff and security of medicines that led to the service being unsafe. We raised this at the time of our visit with both the senior manager on site and the chief executive of the trust.As a result of this, the trust will be subject to regulatory action as requirement notices and a comprehensive inspection will be carried out to confirm this.

We issued a warning notice to the trust on 20 December 2013 in respect of following national and local guidance and policy. We reinspected to monitor compliance with this notice on 27 February 2014. We found that the trust was compliant in respect of the issues contained within the warning notice. Where this follow up inspection reviewed issues at the trust this report has been updated to reflect this.On our return unannounced visit in November 2013, the equipment had been put in place. However, the other issues remained unresolved. We issued the trust with a warning notice in this respect on 20 December 2013. We returned to monitor compliance with the warning notice on 27 February 2014 and found the trust to be compliant.

We inspected this trust as part of our new in-depth hospital inspection programme. This programme is being tested at 18 NHS trusts across England, chosen to represent the variation in hospital care across England. Before the inspection, our ‘Intelligent Monitoring’ system indicated that the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust was a medium-risk trust. The trust had a longstanding history of struggling with its turnaround times in the accident and emergency (A&E) department. The management team had put initiatives in place to reduce the amount of time people were waiting in A&E but these had yet to have an impact. These included escalation plans, bed management meetings, use of discharge boards to name a few. We did not inspect any community services provided.

We did not inspect Maternity and Gynaecology, the trust had commissioned an independent review of the service, this was taking place at the same time as our announced inspection. We decided that it would be too onerous on staff to have two inspection teams at the same time. We also did not inspect critical care, children and young people and end of life services.

Before the inspection, we looked at the wide range of information we held about the trust and asked other organisations to share their knowledge and experience of it. We carried out announced visits between 11 and 14 November 2013 to Good Hope Hospital. We looked at patient records of personal care or treatment, observed how staff were providing care, and talked with patients, carers, family members and staff. We reviewed information that we had asked the trust to provide. Before visiting, we met with four local groups of people to gain their experiences of the trust, and during the inspection we held three listening events, one near each hospital location, so that we could seek the views and experiences of people using the service. We spoke to more than 60 people through these listening events.The inspection took place with an unannounced inspection on 06 September 2016 and on that day we gave the trust short notice of our return on 18 to 21 October 2016.This hospital has been inspected seven times under the previous methodology. The first inspection took place in March 2010 and the hospital was found to be meeting the inspected standards. The next inspections took place in April and August 2011 and the latter inspection found the hospital to be not meeting the standard on the management of medicines. Follow up inspections in 2012 found the hospital to be meeting all inspected standards. The last inspection was in May 2013, following previous non-compliance in January. The hospital was meeting the inspected standards.This inspection was an unannounced responsive inspection and as such we will not be rating the service. The purpose of the report is to share with the trust and the public the evidence we gathered during that inspection. It is also important to note that at the time the trust was in transition with many changes within the trust executive team, some of whom were in interim posts. This had been precipitated by the previous Chief Executive resigning in November 2014.

Our mission is to provide outstanding care and treatment, to share and spread new knowledge and practice, and to always be at the forefront of what is possible.We take personal responsibility to always do our best for our patients, families, and each other, challenging behaviours and attitudes whenever we need to, we speak up and ask for help.

Home to the country’s leading teaching centres, we’re passionate about nurturing and developing the skills of our present and future workforce, along with investing in the very best training and education to foster life-long learning.We are Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust – proud to bring together the expertise of Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Birmingham Women’s Hospital.

We offer a full range of gynaecological, maternity and neonatal care. Our Fertility Centre is one of the best in the country. Our fetal medicine centre receives regional and national referrals and we are home to the West Midlands Regional Genetics Laboratory – the largest of its type in Europe.We are also home to one of the largest Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the country, with a dedicated inpatient Eating Disorder Unit and Acute Assessment Unit for regional referrals of children and young people with the most serious of problems (Tier 4) and our Forward Thinking Birmingham community mental health service for 0-25 year olds.

With more than 641,000 visits from patients each year, we are a busy Trust and pride ourselves on the commitment of our 6,000 strong team, which works tirelessly to provide the very best treatment and support to our women, children and families.

Uniting our hospitals means more seamless care; more investment to make greater advances in our specialist treatment and world-leading neo-natal and fetal work. Importantly, it also gives us a greater voice in shaping the future of family-centred care.

We have placed cookies on your computer to help make this website better. You can at any time read our cookie policy. Otherwise, we will assume that you’re OK to continue.Birmingham Women’s Hospital is a centre of excellence, providing specialist services to more than 50,000 women, men and their families every year from our city, the wider region and beyond.

Our Trust is the first of its type in the UK, formed in February 2017 to drive forward our commitment to providing the highest quality, world-class care that women, children and families want, and deserve.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital is the UK’s leading specialist paediatric centre, caring for sick children and young people up to the age of 16. Rated as ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in February 2017, we are world leader in some of the most advanced treatments, complex surgical procedures and cutting-edge research and development.Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Hospital Trust believe in creating a culture where differences are valued. To do that well, we strive to ensure that we recruit from the communities we serve. This enables us to foster an inclusive culture that welcomes, supports, and celebrates the diverse voices of our employees, as well as our patients, families and visitors. We refuse to condone any discrimination based on age, disability, sex, gender identity, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, race, religion, sexual orientation (including but not limited; to biphobia, transphobia, homophobia) or any other basis for treating people unfairly. Health equality is at our core, which is what drives us to work even harder to acknowledge and support those from marginalised groups. We will work together to be a Trust where inclusivity is always our starting point.

Affiliated to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the children’s teaching hospital houses the only paediatric Level 1 trauma centre in North Texas, along with a 47-bed, Level IV neonatal ICU. The hospital witnesses more than 74,000 emergency room visits and performs more than 13,000 surgeries a year.

Affiliated with the Ohio State University College of Medicine, the children’s acute care teaching hospital saw more than 1.6 million patient visits and performed 30,082 surgeries in 2021.