Medway NHS Foundation Trust

The Medway NHS Trust is one of four hospital trusts in Kent, in southeast England. The trust employs over 3500 staff. The trust's main focus is running Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Medway.^[1]

Medway Maritime Hospital was originally a Royal Naval Hospital, opened by King Edward VII in 1905 and was acquired by the NHS in 1961^[2]

A proposed merger with Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust was called off in September 2013.^[3]

Special measures

In July 2013 as a result of the Keogh Review the Trust was put into special measures by Monitor.^[4] In November 2013 it was threatened that Monitor would remove the management because of its failure to address problems.^[5] It was put into a buddying arrangement with East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust.^[6]

In December 2013 the Trust was one of thirteen hospital trusts named by Dr Foster Intelligence as having higher than expected higher mortality indicator scores for the period April 2012 to March 2013 in their Hospital Guide 2013^[7] and in June 2014, the Daily Telegraph highlighted "six figure sums" paid to "dozens of managers" at a time when the "failing hospital" was short of some 120 nurses.^[8] The Telegraph quoted the £200k package for a 2-day week of chairman Christopher Langley who is entitled to £17k flat rate expenses, and banker Robert Griffiths who is paid the annual equivalent of £540k to act as "treasurer".^[8] The Care Quality Commission made a further inspection in July 2014 and rated it as inadequate. Particular problems were identified in the casualty department where staff "felt under siege", with up to 16 ambulances queueing outside and patients waited for more than 24 hours on at least 10 occasions during the year.^[9] The CQC imposed conditions on the running of the A&E Department that all patients arriving at A&E must be assessed by a clinician within 15 minutes. A system must be established to record each patient's arrival, registration and time of first clinical assessment and the Trust is required to report on a weekly basis every time this standard is failed; and provide details about the patients affected, how long each one waited for an initial assessment, the reason why they waited longer than 15 minutes, and if there were consequences.^[10]

In an effort to improve performance the Trust was given support first by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and then by Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.^[11]

Performance

The trust was one of 26 responsible for half of the national growth in patients waiting more than four hours in accident and emergency over the 2014/5 winter.^[12]

In 2014/5 the trust was given a loan of £22.5 million by the Department of Health which is supposed to be paid back in five years.^[13]

It spent 13.3% of its total turnover on agency staff in 2014/5 – the biggest proportion of any NHS Trust in England.^[14]

In March 2016 the Trust was rated as having a poor reporting culture in the Learning from Mistakes League.^[15] 10,000 patients were said to have waited more than 18 weeks for their first out-patient appointment, and this situation was expected to continue for at least a year.^[16] It had the second worst rating in the national inpatient experience survey.^[17]

It ended 2015/6 in deficit of £52.5 million.^[18]

Mark Reckless

During the Rochester and Strood by-election, 2014 Mark Reckless, the UKIP candidate produced a leaflet attacking the Conservative Party for failing NHS patients, featuring a picture of him (taken when he was a Conservative MP) with Dr Phillip Barnes, the acting chief executive of the Trust. Shena Winning, the chair of the Trust, complained to Reckless, pointing out that public bodies cannot be associated with politically-biased information that could be seen to give any party an electoral advantage and that he had not asked permission to use the picture. She wanted the leaflet withdrawn and a public retraction.^[19]

See also

• Healthcare in Kent
• List of NHS trusts

References

Coordinates: 51°22′48″N 0°32′32″E / 51.38000°N 0.54222°E / 51.38000; 0.54222